My Ex-con
by counselor
Summary: Edward is fresh out of the big house and Bella is his new boss.
1. Chapter 1

My Ex-Con 1

"Yeah Tuesday at eleven," my brother Jasper says with unusual energy. I'm taking a risk talking to him on my cell now that it's illegal to talk on the phone and drive in the state of Illinois. I have it balanced on my thigh and set on speaker. But this risk is nothing compared to the other, bigger risk I'm taking on behalf of my brother.

Well I can barely hear Jasper even with both of my hearing aids in. I'm not an old lady, not technically. I had a hearing loss when I was eighteen and I've worn hearing aids ever since, but few people know that as I wear my hair long and over my ears. Even when I wear my cap while I paint I keep my ears covered.

As for Jasper, I live in his peripheral vision. Unless I yell. If I yell he pays attention, but I've outgrown yelling. And he's Alice's problem for the last few years anyway, hallelujah. Presently he's so grateful for what I'm doing for his buddy he's actually sounding normal.

He's the one that owes Cullen, not me. He was C's accomplice in the theft that landed that punk in prison. Theft of a twelve hundred dollar gun. With a long list of misdemeanors and shit for a lawyer C got ten and served eight. Did I know him before? Sure. I was just getting going then, just starting my business. Cullen was the punk I came home to find sitting at my table with Jasper eating my baloney and drinking my bottled water. Jasper begged me to let him stay. I told the stray he was going to work for it, and if he did drugs or anything unlawful I'd personally kick his ass to the alley.

Punk love. That's what it was. Young Edward Cullen had a thing for me. Cute? Dangerously so, I'll give him that. I'm kind of deaf but my eyes work fine…with glasses.

Cullen stayed in our tiny apartment with the gross lack of privacy for nearly two months. He said, possibly twenty or thirty words in all that time, but the staring. I had to call him on it. I told him he was not allowed to look at me unless I spoke to him. He just did that smirk and kept staring. My understanding was he got beaten regularly, was a runaway at fifteen, but any kind of constructive discipline, forget it. Jasper wasn't much better. Any better. Those were the days.

But Cullen, behind my back he called me Big B. I heard him one day, two of his twenty words. I'd just told him to step it up, I was paying him to paint by the hour not by the stroke. He called me Big B.

"You're my boss, not my mother," he said another time. That was his single most notable quote.

He was a decent worker…had good hands. But he was a thief. Jasper swore he never stole on a job, but I cry bullshit on that. They were a couple of thieves. Granted they were smart enough about it to keep me fooled and not get called out on it by any of our customers, but obviously they were more into criminal behavior than I realized. I blame Jack Mason, that crook.

Jasper has since reformed. Perfect little angel? Never. But Alice has helped him tremendously. He's almost a fairly good employee, that's when he works. Four days a week he's a peach.

Is Edward the first guy coming out of prison I've hired? No. There's my brother. He did two on a plea bargain over the gun.

The hardest thing for a con—employment. Something that isn't shit. I know what I did for Jasper, and I know what I'm doing for Cullen. And he's in a tight box here. If he even looks like he's going to eff-up he's out.

It's all on Jasper. He's found a place for Edward to live…and he's begged me to take him on.

Glutton for punishment—that's me.

I'm driving to the bus station. I hang up on Jasper because I can't drive and find the right exit. I'm picking Cullen up so we can have a talk. I haven't seen him in all this time.

He thought I was bad before…he doesn't know me now. Yeah. I've worked so hard to get where I am. It's my intention to make him understand and if I get even a hint of disrespect or that he's been using, or insincerity, or anything other than humble gratitude then he's out.

I'm looking for a parking spot when I see him, standing by the huge doors smoking a cigarette. He's wearing jeans and a shirt and that leather jacket, and he's holding a bag and such a feeling of dread and awkward settles on me I think about keeping on going.

But he's seen me first, and I remember the stare, and I don't know how I recognized him but I'd know him anywhere, yet this is not a guy you invite into your car, not like this. I pull to the curb and he's moving to the car and he tries to open the door and it's still locked. I fumble to click the locks, hit the button for the radio and the music dies and this silence. He's in. He's big. I mean…he's everywhere, but he's not. But the stare up close. I'm glad I'm wearing my shades. Prescription.

"Hey," he says. He doesn't touch me. He's heavier. More like a man. But he's looking at me, and it's unguarded and I can't look straight at him for long so I look anywhere else.

I look out my window like the fate of the world is in my hands. I almost pull out in front of a car and slam on the breaks and then I go again, pulling out too fast. A glance shows Edward's long arms braced. The small bag he'd carried is at his feet.

"Sorry," I say. It's my first words to him. I have the feeling I've let a zoo animal into my vehicle. There is a hardness, but it's like he's an alien. He's from Mars. And I'm not from Venus. I'm from Pluto.

I never…ever should have agreed to this. I don't know him. He is a complete stranger. The vibes I'm getting he's been dipped in a vat of shit and debauchery. Those eyes. I have failed him and it's too late.

We're quiet and I'm driving the car but I have no real idea how I've gotten on to the highway. He's looked at me some, then out the window and I feel his tension. I wish I hadn't worn this skirt. I'd dressed up for the funeral this morning. But he's probably thinking about it, my legs. My boots. Or up higher. Why would I wear a skirt to pick up an ex-con? This isn't me being a good Samaritan. This is me being a moron. I said yes to this. I agreed. No one will pity my dead remains when I'm pulled out of the river. Fuck Jasper.

"What?" I say. He said something.

"Are you hungry?" he enunciates.

He says this looking out his window. His hair. It's short. Almost shaved. He's thin for a man his size. His eyes. I can't look anymore.

"Are you?" I say.

"Pizza," he says.

We're going for pizza? His hand is close, gripping his seat, but so close to me. Foot and a half from my genitals. Who thinks this? He's the prisoner. God forgive me. He said pizza not the other p word. Why did I think I could work with this criminal?

I am getting off the highway. I don't know where I'm going. It's a tough neighborhood. But I have someone with me who looks like he could kill if necessary. So we're good maybe. I pull into a place that looks more like a biker bar than anything. The sign says Chicago-style pizza. We're not in Chicago.

I park.

"You know this place?" he says looking it over.

"No. Want something else?"

I shut off the car and he opens the door and I open mine, then remember my purse and grab that from the back seat and I'm out.

He waits for me and wants me to walk ahead of him I guess, so I do. We cross the cracked asphalt and it's cold and the wind, and I hold my skirt at the sides and kind of run and I'm in first and he's coming brisk, staring at the ground, hands in his pockets. I'm in the foyer and he opens the glass door, then we glance at one another and I don't know what I see, but it's awkward and I turn away from him and enter the dark bar and a girl in jeans and a black t-shirt comes over, dark choppy hair and a big red smile and she smiles at Edward and heads for a booth in the back and she turns around and smiles again, smiles past me at him, and it helps ground me because I remember how he liked the girls and they liked him.

I slide in my side and he's in his and he's looked up at her a couple of times, then at me, like I give a flip.

"I want a large…everything," he says, "and a big Coke. Bella?"

I guess I'm supposed to get my own. I look at the menu and say the first thing, "Small thin crust mushroom and a Diet Coke."

She's giggling at him.

"Did you get that?" I say.

He looks at me, he's serious.

"How's it feel to be out?" I ask him as soon as she leaves with our order.

He puts his hands on the table and weaves his long fingers together and I remember his hands and the way he held the brush.

"You're just how I remember," he says. "Just…more."

I look at him then. We need to talk. But I'm trying to remember. I know, but I can't get there yet.

"You're older," I say because I'm Einstein.

He smiles. I'm almost relieved to see he still can.

"Thanks for…you sent…."

I wave my hand. "It's nothing."

"And…thanks."

We are looking down, up then down. It's something big now. It's building in him. I grip the edge of the table and he reaches over and lightly touches my knuckles and I put my hands on my lap and clasp my hands there, squeeze the shit out of them. I hadn't meant to pull away so abruptly, and he pulls his hands back. And she brings our drinks.

I pull the paper from my straw but I'm holding the straw.

"Take off the glasses," he says.

I don't need them. It's dark in here. But he can't ask me for anything. I mean…I'm the giver. He's the taker here. He can't ask.

But I pull the glasses off and I hold his gaze. I want to know who he is now. I want to see.


	2. Chapter 2

My Ex-con 2

It's embarrassing to watch him eat it. He takes a piece, and they're big and pie shaped and loaded, and he folds them one at a time and point-first he opens his mouth and sinks his teeth into the soft greasy mess and I can see the shine on his lips and his jaw is working and his chin is shiny too and he licks his fingers and curses softly sometimes when he's not chewing, and closes his eyes sometimes while it all gets processed in there, and he's not self-conscious or anything and it seems private, too private to share.

I can't taste my food, have no appetite and find myself staring.

He's starving.

He drains his glass of Coke and twitchy hips comes back over to the table and refills his glass…seven times. "Boy you're hungry. Boy you're thirsty." And giggles.

He never responds. Let's face it, she's not big on open-ended questions, he just keeps devouring and when she shows up he pushes his glass to the end of the table.

He eats the entire large pizza.

I am sipping my soda. I'm not a light eater but hell.

He asks me if I'm going to eat it. "You going to eat it?"

I shake my head, push it toward him and he eats all of it.

When it's time to pay he insists.

I take the bill, he snatches it, I try to snatch it back, he holds it tight. "I'll pay," he says, and he goes to the bar and pays.

I go on out, but it's so cold, I look back in and he's leaning over the bar lip locked with the waitress. What the hell. This is the disrespect I was talking about. Oh no. No way.

I open the door and she has two hands gripping his jacket across the counter and she just broke it off and he laughs a little, and looks at me and she's all smiles.

He's laughing and they say something to one another and I see him tuck a card in the pocket of that jacket.

He comes out and he doesn't say anything. We walk to the car and I click the thing and it unlocks. I get in and he does too. We're close in here.

I look at him and he has the red lipstick smeared on his face.

I point and shake my head. And he laughs a little and pulls a crumpled napkin out of his pocket and wipes, checks the side-view mirror and wipes some more.

I put on my glasses and clear my throat. "So you know…you'll respect me. That means you'll listen to what I say and do it. What you do on your own time is your business as long as it's legal. The rest is between you and your parole officer. That little display in there…spare me your bullshit. Are we clear?" I start the car. I don't know where all the strong feeling is coming from. He's staring. I think the funeral this morning is finally catching up to me. Mr. Carson was a good neighbor.

He doesn't answer right off. "You're the boss," he finally says. "She wanted to give me a kiss…welcome home."

"Charming," I say. I could say more, like—you told her? Dude, wear a sign and stand on the corner if you're that effing desperate.

But of course I say none of this. We're worlds apart this ex-con and me.

"If I were you I'd gargle some peroxide."

I do say that.


	3. Chapter 3

My Ex-con 3

We continue our journey. He says nothing. Some things never change. He hasn't changed all that much apparently. But he'd better have.

"I have to be able to trust you. If I can't…."

"Jasper said all that."

"Say what?"

"I get it, all right? Bella…."

I glance at him. He's got the burning eyes. I'm a crumb mollified. Just a crumb. I can't get that picture of him and that tramp at the bar out of my mind. "You need to watch your associations," I add. He has special permission from his PO to work with Jasper. I have it in writing. After work no, but if there's a job they can work it together, not that I'll allow it. It's what they create together that got them into their current positions.

He doesn't say anything. I turn on the radio.

He's turned away from me now. Oh sorr-ee.

Back to the thing about not putting two felons on the same job. I remind myself-when hiring an ex-con, you have to protect your business and your other employees. Do a thorough background check. You'll find out all kinds of things like how Edward doesn't have a father listed on his birth certificate and how he was in and out of foster care by the time he was eight eventually taking things into his own hands at fifteen when he ran away and lived a colorful life on the streets. Until he ended up at my place. Fancy that, where nineteen year old me employed him at the ripe old age of seventeen, a quiet smart ass who wanted more than a nine to five apparently. Anyway, incarcerated two days shy of twenty he's now Rip Van Wrinkle wearing his raggedy man clothes and saying shazzam as he looks out the window of my Toyota.

Well he's thinking shazzam because he still doesn't say shit. And he's got a nice head, no flat spot like mine.

Back to the guide for hiring ex-cons. Consider if he's had the initiative to get his freaking GED and some job training while in prison. If so, what has he learned? In Edward's case he's finally finished high school and taken carpentry and earned a certificate. That's a big plus for him. And for me. I required he take advantage of some classes. I wrote that. He said he wasn't a writer but he made an exception for me. He asked for my picture and I sent my school picture from community college, yes Associates in Business here. I was smiling in the picture. I told him I hoped it would inspire him to know someone believed he could be more than a body in a blue jumpsuit. That was it. No more letters. I think I sent a Christmas card that one time and a copy of The Purpose Driven Life which I also made Jasper read. I don't know if he ever did as I saw it under some magazines in his bathroom once and it looked settled in, like undisturbed with a bookmark between pages three and four.

But back to Edward. I sent money all the time. If Jasper actually gave it to him and didn't spend it.

Next, find out the details of his parole. Oh yeah. Make sure the dumbass fulfills the rules of probation. For example, is he reporting to his parole officer? Is he keeping curfew? If the officer does a home visit, is Cullen complying with the rules? No weapons. No drugs. Does the boy need counseling? He needs to get it.

Avoid putting your con in volatile situations. Like I said before, keep him away from Jasper and don't trust him around cool and valuable stuff his itchy fingers might attempt to steal. Or his ass is back in the slammer and you are an idiot, again, and short-handed.

Keep your little eyes open. Wear your glasses. Turn up your hearing aids. Watch the sucker for lies, subterfuge, general bullshit. Don't operate from sympathy or guilt or weird stuff like knowing you're thirty and he's a candidate for lazy love because he's probably ready to go and he keeps side-eying my…your legs.

And check out the government benefits for your little hard-working taken advantage of self. Me? I'm getting a tax break for having the courage/stupidity to take him on.

I can't help but look at him a little. He's listening to the radio. He's pensive.

"Who's this?" he asks.

"Lady Gaga," I say.

"What? You making that up?"

"I doubt anyone could make that up," I say.

Yeah, he's got some catching up to do.

"Mind if I smoke?" he says. He's already got it hanging out of his mouth and he's patting himself looking for matches.

I don't give permission, but he lights up and cracks the window. He takes a drag and lets it out like he used to, a small o in the corner of his mouth while he glances at me, like he's smoking me. He's aiming for the window. He looks at me again. "Thanks," he says.

Well I figure he's got vices behind his vices. At least it's not a stick of illegal.

"You clean?" I ask like I don't already know, but conversation with a con isn't like conversation with say, anyone else.

"I cleaned up in there," he says, another drag, another breathe out through those lips and work the throat moment.

I get on the highway.


	4. Chapter 4

My Ex-con 4

When we pull up in front of his boarding house, he looks at it a minute, really seems to look. "This it?"

He doesn't usually state the obvious.

"Room and board," I say, anxious to be rid of him so I can think it all over. Every choice he's ever made has brought him here. For now.

Some wino looking guy is walking in. The front glass doors haven't been washed in a long time. Hey, it's not a correctional facility, so technically he's the Jeffersons—moving on up. But I'm patient.

"Well," he says looking at me, "thank-you."

"You got a problem…with this place?"

Big breath. "No," he says on the exhale.

"You know we start in the morning."

"That's what you said."

"Yeah. Six-thirty sharp I'll be by to pick you up."

"Jasper said you bought a house."

I thought we were saying good-bye. "Yeah."

"So…let's swing over there and see it." He's never embarrassed. He's looking at me now, what…inviting himself? See, he should be embarrassed. I am. For him.

"I see it all the time. I live there," I say.

"Yeah. I want to see where you been holin' up."

"Why? There's no loot to divvy up."

He looks away and sniggers. He always did get my crap.

"No loot," he says looking out the windshield. "Come on. I want to see."

I stare at him for a minute. "Why?"

He shrugs, sticks out his bottom lip a little. "Girl makes good I want to see, that's all." He's smiling at me, laughing at me too.

"You just got out of prison."

"That I did," he nods.

It hits me…he wants what…a party? He wants someone…to be glad. Like the waitress?

"I know the rules. I won't disrespect you, Bella. I just want to…."

I thunk my head against the headrest and push my glasses up my nose. Do not operate out of sentiment. Do not be manipulated. I don't owe him hats and noise makers. I'm giving him a job for god sakes.

"I'll just stay a few minutes and I'll take a bus back here. It's by the garden, right?"

I don't say anything, I pull off, and he sets back in his seat, his legs spread as wide as space allows. He turns the radio up a little. "Who's this?"

"Adele," I say.

"Adele," he repeats rubbing his hand over his shorn hair.


	5. Chapter 5

My Ex-con 5

I'm proud when I pull up in front of my gray two-storied house. I'm proud and something else like…I'm not trying to lord it over him. I'm ashamed. Ashamed for him.

We are sitting in the driveway and I turn off the key.

"Bella," he says. And he's out of the car. He grabs his bag, doesn't leave it in the car. I'm just watching and there it all is.

He's looking at the place like he's seeing heaven or something. It's a plain Jane house, but it's mine. It needs work, and that's all I see when I look at it if I'm not careful.

I don't want to bust him up. He seems happy over this. He has his hand on the siding. It's redwood under the paint. He says that. "This is redwood?" Well he's asking.

"Yeah," I say. I'm like…really proud now.

"Shit Bella. That came from a long way. This place is what a hundred, hundred fifty years old?"

"Yeah. Hundred and fifty," I say. I'm a little impressed too. "They brought it out…the railroad…back in the day you know."

"New window," he says passing the tall window that inside has a window-seat built before it. I read there. Well I did once.

"Yeah," I say keeping up with him. "I only replaced the ones on the first floor. They were the worst."

"Glad you got wood. Not vinyl."

"Yeah…me too. They cost more though."

"Hell yeah. But it keeps the integrity."

"Exactly," I say. I don't know him. I don't. He didn't care about shit. And now he's like, Holmes on Homes or something.

Well it had to happen. He had to round the corner and go in back and see the shit. The back porch has been ripped away since last summer. I've got the permits, but no time. No money.

"What are you going to do here?" he asks.

I'm standing next to him. It's another lifetime…this. He's tall and easy, easy to talk to, easy to be with now that we're out of the car, outside with this, all of this to put our attention on. My house. My life. But he's looking at it…my fretting, worrisome, non-existent back porch, and the love of my life this two-storied castle of old wood and handmade nails, hopes and dreams, ghost families filling rooms too big, but not for me, drafty and light-filled, creaking honey-colored floors and a banister connecting the layers, walls of lathe and plaster, ceilings high enough to keep it cool in summer and to hold all the sweet safe silence. My little piece of history. My house.

"Fucking all right," he says.

I can look at him while he looks at the house. His profile…it's settled into something raw, the roundness gone. It's strong, the line of him, his face a well-shaped skull shrink-wrapped in skin, the wide set of his eyes, his nose and lips, his jaw, always that fuck you jaw he tilts, he juts. His looks, they served him back in the day. Hard to ignore. It hurt him too. Mostly. It's like he was his own prize. Nothing else, no back-up, no family I mean, just his looks, a beautiful throw-away. He was mad as hell, so damn mad that smoldering fire under the beauty, it made him ugly sometimes, it made him mean and reckless. He had to prove how much he hated himself. It seemed so.

Things came easy and nothing came easy. He didn't have a clue, and that was the off-put for me. He didn't have a damn idea for himself cause no one showed him and he needed that…direction. But he got set in doing it his way. Just like Jasper only smarter maybe. No, he was always too smart to be so fucking dumb.

But now, his hands on his hips and he's looking at the weathered wound from where the bones of the porch were ripped away from the house.

He's been through shit. It's in his eyes, his mouth. He looks at you and there it is, he's seen shit. Nothing young in his eyes, a wavering light. He's been alone…is alone. He was doing his time that way Jasper said. Guys like Edward, they didn't break out loud. They went inside, deep down in themselves their own solitary confinement.

Maybe it was that way. I can't ask. I don't want to. But I feel it.

"We um…we need to go. I'll take you home…but I've got stuff," I say.

"I'll take the bus."

"No. I'll take you. Now." I try to control it this way.

"What's that back there?" he says.

"An old carriage house. It's…a mess."

"Can I look?"

"I guess. Then…."

"Yeah." He covers the long yard with wide steps. He goes back there. First he cups his hands and looks in a window. He works the door open, goes in. I see the shit light through the dirty windows. Hell I guess I'll go back. I look in and he's walking around, stepping over my shit because it's all ended up in here.

"It's solid," he says. "There's a sink."

"You can't live in here," I say.

"I would though," he says. "Let me stay here."

This is him. This is how he is. He goes for it. Right or wrong he goes for it.

"Hold on. Hold on. "

"Bella…I don't need much. I'll work. I'll build your porch. I'll stay out of your way. I don't need…."

"You said you would listen."

"I said I know the rules. I'm listening."

"You're already changing it…the plan. You're trying to change…I'm going to the car and taking you back. Follow me or we're done. And if we're done you're fucking back…."

"All right. It's cool. It's all cool."

He comes then, leads the way even. I'm embarrassed again. He should be. He just blew it up…begged. It felt like he begged. He shouldn't beg. He should never, ever beg.

He's already in the car when I get in. He looks at me and I feel so damn uncomfortable.

"I lost a good friend…we buried him…this morning." Why in the hell am I saying this. I had a reason but I don't know what it was. I start the car and back into the street. Before I can shift into drive his hand is over mine. He looks at his hand there.

"You're touching me," I say.

"You're hands are warm," he says taking his hand away. "I remember that."


	6. Chapter 6

My Ex-con 6

"What's the inside like?" he asks before we're down my street.

"Big," I say. Not big enough. I'm still thrown. All of it. The begging. Touching me. Remembering.

It's hard for him to be out. I feel it. He doesn't sit back, he's hunched forward, looking straight ahead now, ignoring the passenger's window, as if he's seen enough and he's fixed on the road ahead.

We're soon back at his place. I pull to the curb. Inside I'm thinking no. But it's overridden with a stern yes. "See you in the morning. What time do you report to your PO?"

"During lunch…twelve." He's eying the doors to that place.

"You…you'll do it. One day at a time like they say."

"You ah…Jasper said there's no guy."

"We're not talking about me. And that girl at the bar…."

"She's a felon."

"Then you can't see her," I state the obvious now.

He opens his door and he's out. He leans in. There's that face skin tight and his eyes, how the hell can I keep doing this?

"I ah…thanks for everything," he says.

My mouth is open when he shuts the door. I'm staring, but only because I'm conflicted. I didn't know what to expect when he came home, but this isn't it. He looks back at me and waves. Then he takes the stairs two at a time and he goes in like it's Christmas in there.

I check my phone. Jasper has been burning it up. I text him. C's home, he's in his room. Make sure you get started at Mac's at seven sharp.

Then I realize, Edward won't know how to text. Or tweet. He won't know how to Skype. Or use a tablet. He won't believe how light and portable everything is.

I start to watch the traffic, waiting for my chance.

I get a break but I don't take it.

Something hits the passenger's window. I yelp and jump.

It's him.

We're looking at one another through the glass for a few seconds.

Then I hit the unlock button and he gets in.


	7. Chapter 7

My Ex-con 7

I think it was Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind who liked to say, "I'll think about that tomorrow."

It must be luxury to turn it on and off like that.

I don't sleep.

When I let him get back in the car, we pulled away and it was silent. I had crossed a line, but I was the one holding everything and we both knew it.

So he asked about my friend we'd buried and I said he was older. A neighbor. But I gave Cullen no more than that because it's my life he seems to want, and I've cracked the door now letting him come and stay, but my foot is behind that same door. My foot.

"There's no shower," I say sternly.

"I'll make do."

"I wouldn't put a dog in there. I wouldn't."

He laughs a little.

I am looking at him in bits and pieces. I'm also driving. Aggressively.

"Slow down," he says, his hand on the dash.

"Wear your seatbelt," I snap. Damn lawbreaker.

He fumbles around and clicks the belt in place but I don't slow down.

When we get to my house I'm out of the car first, door slammed.

"Bella," he says, also out.

I don't stop or look at him. "Wait on the porch," I call.

I let myself inside and hurry upstairs for the blow-up mattress and some sheets, a blanket. I snatch a pillow off of my own bed. "Mother-f…," I say when I do that.

I add a towel, a bar of soap. I'm a general store now. Oh and baking soda. I don't have another toothpaste but there's an extra brush from my last check-up. Last thing is the bag. From Jasper. I grab the broom as I head out the back door, careful to jump down in my boots since there's no porch. He's not there so I call him. "Cullen," I say because he's taken enough of my time.

He comes around from the side. "The foundation is hand laid," he's saying, concerning my rock foundation. Aren't we supposed to build on the rock? Not the sinking sand so think, think you son of a bitch.

I hand him everything. Lastly the broom. He laughs a little.

"I have a plug in heater. You'll have to run a cord from my kitchen. I'll thread it out the window. The stuff in the bag…that's Jasper." I don't look at him. I keep my voice dead.

"No shit?"

It's the least, the very least my brother could do. Well he did keep in touch all the way through Edward's sentence except the two years he was incarcerated himself. That was when I sent the card.

We touch some as I hand off. It makes me even madder, if possible. And then the eyes. The neediest eyes, always were. But you couldn't get to it…the need. You could die trying.

No I don't look at him. And no one looks at me.

He always has. But no one else really looks. And I hate him for it, for making me know.

"This doesn't change anything," I say. "You're not ready to go at six-thirty you're back at the Hilton."

He smiles. "I don't sleep heavy. I'll watch for your light." He can barely point with the load he's holding, but he manages a finger in the direction of my upstairs window. "That's you, right?" He has leaned slightly forward to say this, as if he wants it to get in my ear, the asking.

I don't like it. Why should I trust him?

"I have a lot to do," I say and I go back around the front of the house. It's only two. I have bookwork. Missed a whole day today…on all this shit. Cullen has no transportation, no driver's license. No money really. He has nothing. He'll need supper unless he walks to the store a few blocks away, and his jacket….

His problems are not mine.

He's in the ditch. I can walk on by or I can keep looking. I brought him here. Here. I allowed it.

And I can un-allow it. Foot behind the door.

But I don't sleep. I do sit up in bed, I do walk to the window and look back at the shed, at the long cord connecting my house to his. And I do remember what he said before, the last time I saw him, the smirk, the surface crust of fuck the world, I do remember that, his hands cuffed, the jumpsuit, the heavy beard. "I'd do anything for you. Bella."

And he had.


	8. Chapter 8

My Ex-con 8

In the morning I feel like shit and look like shit. Here's how I work, white painters cap, no bill. I'm known for it. It allows the paint to splatter my glasses so I have work glasses that Jasper's woman usually cleans for me because she can't stand looking through the thick splatters any longer, she says. And she's a fixer. Jasper is a sticky trap for them. He either gets crazy ho, or crazy fixer ho. Alice is no longer a ho, I might add. Just a crazy fixer. Who says people can't change.

Jasper is a peacock. He got the sense of style I should have gotten and didn't. And our gene pool is vast. We have one parent in common. We know it's our mother because she would have never taken us on if we hadn't grown inside of her. Fathers—like I said, the gene pool is vast. And vast don't mean great.

My brother has been diagnosed as bi-polar. Somewhere along the way. It seems to be the new catch-all for 'what the fuck.'

I'm not diminishing it. I see the struggle, I have my hands on the end of his rope so yeah, I get it. But it's a broad umbrella is all I'm saying and a lot of fucked-up-ness goes under it.

But this morning, I finally slept, one hour before I needed to get up. That kind of sleep just stirs the exhaustion.

There's a knock on my back door. You knock on that door and it sounds half-way down because—no porch. So I open it and Edward is looking up at me.

It's weird. It's ridiculous.

He looks good. The white overalls under the shabby jacket—better. He's wearing the cap. Jasper.

He looks more rested than me.

"I've got coffee," I say, stepping from the door. Yes, I suppose he's coming in. Yesterday, never. This morning, whatever.

He comes flying in, slides on the beat up shoes. He's laughing. He'd taken a running start at it and jumped and flew in. "Hey," he says coming to a stop and looking around. "Hey," he says again, hands on his hips. He walks into the foyer and whistles. Yeah, he sees the staircase. I gather my robe more closely around me. I'm leaning on the counter drinking coffee. I don't have my hearing aids in yet, ain't wearing my glasses. It's a softer entry into the world. But there he is, framed in the kitchen doorway. He's walked the circle and seen the rooms. "I like it," he says. "Who's doing the work?"

"Close the door," I snap.

As for who is doing the work-whoever I can get. They work for me, they move on. Sometimes I can get them to help with a project. For pay. In this business I meet people. I've got a couple of guys I can call on. Jacob or Mike. But I don't like to.

I am drinking it black and hot. I get him a cup, set it on the counter. He walks lightly to the pot. I move away and sit at the table. There is a covered plate there. Cookies. I pull the towel off. I know he didn't have supper. He never went out. He was working back there. I raised the window and I heard.

He takes a cookie but he doesn't pull a chair. He leans against the counter where I was. He dunks. I forgot that. He's a dunker. He tilts his head to the side and goes for a big soggy bite. He's got a fresh cut on his cheek. He didn't shave.

I rub over the top of the table. Three coats of varnish on this. Did it myself. It's cool under my hand. It's smooth. "You're early," I say.

"I looked for your lights." He takes another cookie and he's watching my hand. It's nothing to look at, nails cut short, small, fingers that will never play the piano, but they can hold a brush or a roller. My hands are strong.

I don't want to talk. He's already fucking me up being early. I like it quiet.

I finish my coffee and stand, take my cup to the sink, walk other side of the table so I don't have to pass near him.

"Need me to load up?"

"No," I say.

I leave him there and go upstairs to get ready. It will take me fifteen minutes tops. As I'm going up I hear the refrigerator open. "Get out of there," I call.

I hear the frig close, stop on the landing to hear cabinets being opened and closed. Street urchin. No boundaries.

"Get out of my stuff," I yell.

"Just looking," he says. I hear him pull a drawer.

"You're always looking," I mutter going into my room. "Always looking."


	9. Chapter 9

My Ex-con 9

"Jasper said the old truck died," he says as we ride to the job site. He's eating his third sausage biscuit and drinking a mocha. I had to tell him what mocha was and that he should branch out and try the steak and egg burrito, and he said he was going to try it, maybe for lunch, and I said they didn't have it for lunch, just breakfast, and he said he wanted a Big Mac anyway and very soon.

He bought our breakfast. I'm having my usual, a medium mocha and two breakfast burritos. I already wear my cap, and my splattered horn rims. My hair is braided. Always is for work, or a ponytail. And it's over my ears like I said before.

After he's done eating and licking, he reaches over and takes my glasses off, which makes my hearing aids sing. I am drinking my mocha so it's not like I can get away. "Hey, I need those," I say in a voice that is probably too loud.

"You can't see out of them anyway," he says huffing on them, then reaching in his jacket to undo one side of his bibs and pull up and out the tail of his undershirt.

He doesn't have warm clothes. That's one thing.

"Give them to me," I say like a bitch.

"Hold on," he says really going to work on them.

"Why can't I be left alone?" I say toward my window.

"Calm down," he says.

I make a sound like 'effer shut up.'

"There. Now you can see your eyes," he says when they are done.

"Or the road," I snap. I don't give him a chance to put them on me like I've had a stroke. I grab them from him and stick them on my face. They're nice and clean. Full of his germs, but clear as crystal.

He's crossed another line making personal remarks, touching me, handling my stuff, well taking it right off my face. I start to gather up the trash, and he takes it all, touching me again in the process, and puts it in the bag. He's pissing me off.

"We get there, just do what I said, quiet, respectful, no personal information. You won't be painting you'll be prepping. Work quickly and quietly. No smoking. When we take lunch you say nothing." Meaning don't let it slip that we're going to report to his parole officer.

"Got it, Boss," he says. He shifts around and clears his throat. I wonder if he's nervous.

"You seem nervous." I mean, yesterday this time he was incarcerated.

"Nervous?" He says. He digs for a smoke then.

"Crack the window," I say to let him know I'm barely tolerating the habit.

"Yeah Boss," he says rolling it down a couple of inches. He nurses the smoke then. He doesn't look at me.

My phone goes off and I dig it out of my pocket and set it on my leg, push speaker. It's Riley asking me if he should pick up the order when he comes in at nine. I handle that then shut off the phone.

Edward's hand is already going for it—my phone. I grab it before he can.

"Can I see it?"

It's mine. My stuff is private. It's not up for handling. I click it on and hold it so he can see. "See it?"

I click it off and put it back in my pocket.

He looks out his window and doesn't speak again and I finish my food. When we get to the neighborhood he whistles through his teeth. For some reason, I'm nervous.

We get out and I decide to have one more conversation to cover our bases. "I tell the guys, you don't look at the woman of the house, and this one here…she's around all the time. So…keep your eyes on your work."

His chest expands under his coat. He's looking at me so solidly, no blink.

"I'll try to control myself," he says drolly.

"Hey. It's your ass I'm trying to protect. Bad enough I've got two felons on the payroll. Just don't…act like one." I round the van and open the back doors. He gets beside me and we gather our equipment. His hand hits mine a couple of times, his arm, his shoulder.

"Stop touching me," I snap.

He looks at me. "Sorry Boss."

"And cut the bullshit. You're not a little roll-over so stop acting like one," I say.

"You nervous?" he says.

That throws me a little. "Should I be?"

"No B," he says hefting a big bucket of paint.

"Don't call me that. Bella's fine. No B."

There's the jaw. He looks at the house. "Big place." He steps back, holding enough stuff I won't have to make another trip for a while.

"You'll do okay," I say.

Then I lead the way.


	10. Chapter 10

My Ex-con 10

We pull in the alley behind my house and I park the van in front of the carriage house where Edward now lives. It's been a day and we're both exhausted.

We've been quiet on the way home. I get out and the shed is before me. It's twenty-two degrees and dropping. I go straight to the shed and open the door and I see the place, some wood stacked and the blanket neatly folded. And I hate myself, and maybe I hate him but I can't fight it.

He puts his hand on the door and I say, "Get your stuff and come up to the house."

Of course he stares.

"We'll make potato soup," I say tiredly, walking away, trudging through the frozen yard.

It's already dark. I walk around the side of the house to the front, up the steps, dig my mail out of the box.

I'm fumbling for my key when I hear him come up behind me. He reaches like he's going to take the key and I block him with my shoulder and manage to get the door open. We go in.

I have a ritual. It starts with flipping on the light, laying my mail on the table, taking off my boots. I do all that and Edward has dropped his bag and he does the same, takes off his shoes.

See I love being home. Nothing comes close. I get lonely sometimes but I wouldn't give it up, being by myself. It's renewal. This is my sanctuary. No one knows how it is. All those years with Jasper…I'm broken. And even before. I always knew. I'm different. I feel safe here. I put a book on the shelf, and it stays. I put a dish on the table and it stays. I can pick it up. I can put it down. No one knows what this means.

"I've got one bathroom and it's upstairs," I say.

He's thinking it over. Prison has heightened that thing, that animal in a trap thing he radiates. He's wary and he's trying to pretend like he isn't. I realize this, he doesn't trust me either. For the truth.

"Well…you first?" he says.

He reads me. It's in his favor. But it's violation. He's in my space and he's reading me. He'd better, for his own good. But I'll resent him for it the whole time. He's screwed and he knows that, knows the futility…of me.

"No. You go. Um, you can get another day out of your bibs, but…drop outside the door what you need washed."

He takes his bag and he's walking upstairs, gripping the banister, giving it a shake, noticing everything. Now I'm staring. Invasion.

But he stops to examine the stained glass window on the landing. I'm still staring. Interloper. Can he imagine what I'm giving away? He doesn't have to. He's been locked up. Caged. Mentally…he still is. He's asking me to lead him. Out. Me. Fuck.

He finishes his inspection and makes the corner and goes up the short flight to the second floor. I hear his footsteps as he moves into each of the four rooms, the holy of holies. My bedroom. My bathroom. My ivory tower.

Wait until he sees I don't have a shower. I do have a kick-ass original porcelain claw-footed tub though. And I want it and I'm pissed that I don't have the freedom to use what's mine.

But he's in a ditch. He's in a ditch and I know it. Fuck him.

He's had no time to change lanes. Jasper needed a month, and that after two years. Edward walked out of the facility, got on a bus, got in a car, spent the night in a shed, ate three biscuits, worked, ate two Big Mac's, saw his PO, worked some more. He's in shock. I know this, but I never thought past the job and that was hard enough to give. I'm fucking limited. God knows this. We made a deal a long time ago. He wouldn't ask too much and I'd walk the narrow. Well this is too fucking much.

Edward wants to be by me. Like right by me, like I'm a guide dog. All day, every time I turn around. I finally quit fighting it. I let him be there. I start to explain what I am doing, the glazing technique, so the home owner won't wonder. Then I help him do his job. I show him how to do simple things. He's too overwhelmed. I am a compass, I am taking him by the hand, everything I hate and swore I wouldn't do. We assemble the scaffold, tape off everything together, cut in some of the edges, around some of the trim. His hand isn't steady. And close as we are, I see the nicks and dings in his skin. His nose was always crooked from a break. But now I swear it's been broken again.

I don't know what happened in those hours. But somehow, without many words at all, we found a way, a slow way.

It wasn't profound. We didn't walk on the moon, we laid some tape and some paint.

He entered parole. He knows institutions. The man breathing down his back and up his ass. He knows that.

I sigh and go in the living room to build a fire. It blazes high and yellow and blue. The heat on my face so good. I have a thick rug here. I sit here, more than anywhere else when it's cold. On the floor in front of the fire. I pull off my cap and my braid hits my back. I should start the soup, fry the bacon. He's upstairs. Being a human. He doesn't know how. Today…I felt it. I let myself.

He doesn't come down. Not in twenty minutes or forty. I am pissed to have to go upstairs. I knock on the door, hear a splash and a, "Yeah Boss."

He's fallen asleep in the tub. "Come down," I say. "Dinner."

"Bella?" he says, more to himself. He didn't know he was here.

When he comes downstairs I smell the soap. I am sitting in front of the fire again. I am holding my bowl of food. He is behind me. I turn to look at him and he's holding his clothes.

"Put them by the basement door," I say.

He does that and returns wearing his overalls, and I don't think anything else.

He sits beside me, Indian style. He takes the full bowl in his hands.

"It's hot," I say before taking a bite of my own. With his shoulders bare I see more of the marks against very hard muscle. It's a story, this man's body, like a tree twisting out of a flood plain, no leaves, gnarled and hardened by the wind. That's what I liken him to.

Well I'm giving it all away now, everything I keep for myself. I'm sharing it I guess.

He's holding the bowl with two hands, his fingers stretched, like a priest might hold an offering he lifts to the gods. He's staring into the bowl.

"Eat it," I say.

I hear him breathe in, and it's in his shoulder, a tremble. He bows his head.

"Edward?" I say.

He's holding the bowl. It hasn't moved. Just his head and his shoulders. I lean forward to better see. To see him in profile. His head bowed, his eyes screwed shut. His lips sealed, holding it in. Holding it back.

I set my bowl on the floor and pull his from his hands. He has trouble letting go. When I get it and set it before me, his hands drop, his elbows on his knees, his head lower, the shuffle of breath. His shoulders…shaking.

In a minute his head lifts and I hear him swallow. Hear his throat work. Breaths in and out, pulling, lifting the drawbridge, shutting the door.

He sniffs and his eyes go to the fire and take respite there. I pick up his bowl and nudge him, hand him the food, the crackers broken over the surface, the spoon waiting.

"Eat it," I say again.

He takes it from me. His eyes, they find my face like a moor in the storm. I know that now. I'm here, aren't I?

I think I am.


	11. Chapter 11

My Ex-con 11

"Edward," I call from the shoulder of the highway.

He's going to get hit. My god, this is not how I wanted to solve my problem.

He's made it to the median and he's got the dog, a young something…from the looks of it. A mutt rather. Brown and black. Tongue hanging from the panic. What in the hell does he think we're going to do with it? That's if they both make it back to the van alive.

He saw it while we were sitting in bumper to bumper. It was panicked running around. We watched it nearly die twice when cars came screeching to a halt. He couldn't sit by, telling me to pull over, pull over, do it. He said it with so much authority, like he was finally in there. I actually listened.

Then he was out of the van on the mother-effing highway in morning rush hour, an ex-con rescue team risking his life. Hero or fool? You know my vote.

Now he reaches the van, this big dog in his arms.

We all get in. This dog is panting, poking its head in front between our seats. Edward is petting him.

"Is that a pit bull?" I say, leaning heavily on my door.

"No," he scoffs like I'm the one who needs to get a grip.

"Ugliest dog," I say. It's got a weird brindle color scheme going on. What next?

I find a gap and pull into traffic. Obviously, we're on our way to work. I tried to talk Edward into staying at the house, resting until he'd had time to adjust a little. He wouldn't hear it. He wants to be with me, so much so he's willing to go through the hell of trying to do a job. I'm assuming everything but actions speak. Loudly.

And now I have a fucking dog in my van. "I guess we'll be late," I say, hitting the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. "The shelter is out of our way."

"He can stay in the van."

"Why would we let him do that?" I say as Edward feeds this guy the last half of one of his steak and egg burritos.

"Maybe we could let him stay a couple of days. At your place."

He's not looking at me but he' cracking one of the waters I gave him. He's holding it in the side of the dog's mouth and that thing is lapping and drops are flying.

"No," I say.

"In the carriage house?" he pushes still feeding Brutus his bottle.

I'm not running a hotel, or a kennel.

"Out of the question," I say.

"Then he stays in the van until lunch," he says. "We can take him to the shelter during lunch."

His ability to brainstorm is astounding. He really should be a trouble shooter in the corporate world. Please recognize the sarcasm. I wonder if he's aged a day since entering prison. He's hardened in one way, but underneath, he's still a teenager. I'm trying to run a business here.

"That is a damn pit bull," I say.

"He's a good guy," Edward says rubbing Bruiser's neck. "He just needs…a chance."

Don't we all.

"I need a chance to get this job we're on finished without looking like I'm running the Mickey Mouse show. You know how long it took me to get work in that neighborhood? Now I'm going to have a yapping dog in the van? A pit bull?"

"He's not gonna yap," Edward says scratching its ears. It's groaning with pleasure. "He'll do his time quiet."

"You know this?"

"I can tell," he says. "He's no chump."

"No," I say, "that would be me."


	12. Chapter 12

My Ex-con 12

The dog was stand-up, all day in my van. He seemed grateful, humble even, like he was working with us, like he knew his fate was in our hands. He liked the confinement, surrendered to it.

"He ain't been out long," Edward said.

At home that evening, his nails click on the soft wood of my kitchen floor. A new sound. And Edward has been lavishing attention on this dog as I put a chicken on the stove to stew. "I'm going up…make sure this doesn't bubble over," I say.

"Yo," he says washing his hands then moving towards the small pile of vegetables I've assigned him to chop for the dumplings. I look back before I leave the room. He has the cutting board on the kitchen table making the work surface too low for his tall frame. He's still wearing the two-day old overalls. His t-shirt underneath will have to be washed again cause he only has two. The dog watches him with a fevered devotion.

What am I going to do with him? He can't keep the dog. He hasn't got a place to live, not permanently. Fuck me.

I go on up. I turn on the faucet, check the flow for just the right hot/cold blend, then strip off my work clothes. I have just fixed a bath towel around me when the door bursts open and one happy dog races in. He touches my leg with his nose, then he is quickly stretching his neck and lapping my bath water. I yell, get out of here, or something when it raises up and puts its front paws in the water and sinks until the rim of the tub hits under its arms. It's flailing for purchase, but manages to get out after a good deal of splashing and shakes violently throwing water all over me and the rest of the room.

Somewhere in there I've leapt up on the toilet seat.

And that's where Edward finds me, the knife still in his hand, his eyes, his mouth so open.

He takes a big look at me, top to bottom, and he looks at me a couple of more times as he pulls the dog out of the room, staring all the while. His mouth snaps shut and he shuts the door.

I am still standing on my perch staring at the closed door. I slowly realize the towel is no longer around me, but I hold it in front of me with two clenched fists. I make a little whining sound. It's covered the essentials but not the bare outline on the sides.

I'm still there when the door bursts open once more and Rover goes right back to drinking from the tub. Edward appears, another ogling of me, then apologizing the whole time he drags the dog back out and shuts the door. Then he rattles the doorknob and pulls on the door as if trying to make sure it's clicked in place this time. It closes poorly and there's no lock. I used to live here by myself. I don't normally even have to close it.

"Sorry Bella," he says through the wood.

I slowly step off the seat, careful not to slide in the puddled water.

"I'll wipe it up," he says.

"No," I say tightening the towel once more. "Go downstairs."

"Don't be pissed off," he says. "He's just…."

"He has to go to the shelter, right? You don't…have a place for him."

Long silence. I won't even look at myself in the mirror.

"What about out-back?" he says.

I wait to hear him leave. It's a few seconds before he does.

11111111111111111111111

I take off the towel and wipe up the mess. I add some Windex and take the time to clean a little. I'm prolonging things, but I need to think.

Once in the tub in the cooled water, I add hot and lean back. I'm pissed he got an eyeful, but that isn't the first time. Like I said we lived together, the three of us, ten years ago now. Just a couple of months. The first time. There were lots of other times, a night, two nights, a week. Like I said, street urchin. He wasn't above slipping into my bed. I'd wake up, and there he would be, that face. Talk about a stray. But his hands, he wasn't allowed to touch me. I'd yell at him, but he'd just do it again.

He…had a thing. I know what it's like for a guy to have a crush…to worship. I've felt that. From him. We kept the distance, the myth that I was—up there—going. On a pedestal. Or a toilet seat, like tonight. It was all right there for a minute. For me I mean. I wondered where it went. But it was all right there, briefly.

It's been a while. He's incarcerated for eight. I don't know, he got it anywhere and everywhere before that. Jasper sure did and they ran together and I heard stuff. That's what they did. Take.

He was better today. Not great, but not as unsure. And he separated enough that he was able to buckle down to a task. He trimmed all afternoon while I worked the roller.

I like working with him. He's quiet. He just works. But he checks for where I am, how far apart we are maybe. I feel that. He's pulled in when the lady of the house comes around. She's sees him. You can't miss. Just his arms, and now with the scars and the tattoo up high on his bi-cep drawing the eye. His shoulders are straight. He's never needed a paper bag over his head, that's all. Riley is no slug, but she was drawn to Edward. He got cookies and water three times. She offered coffee, she's like skinny blond lady in workout clothes cause she does the gym. She's got the ponytail and the fragile lady energy men love.

He looks at me and says no thanks to her cause she's motioned him toward the kitchen. She wants to run him off, away from the herd. That's how I see it. But the good shepherd goes after her sheep. That would be me-chump.

She wants to fuck the streets, he could take her around the block. She doesn't know what she's asking for. Or what he is. He leaves the room, I'll be on his heels.

He gets it. I don't have to say anything. As long as he's mindful this will be a Hallmark movie with a HEA.

1111111111111

By the time I've cleaned the bathroom and dressed, I go downstairs and I see them in front of the fire. The dog lifts its head but watches. It gets up and comes to me, not hyper this time but subdued. I don't pat its head because I have dumplings to make and, he's been a wild-ass shit.

But in the kitchen I see the food is done. The Bisquick sits on the table, but the dumplings are made and puffy on top of the soup just like they should be. The dishes aren't done but they're stacked in the sink and the counters are wiped.

We worked through lunch today. I'd wanted to finish the living room so we kept at it.

On the way home we talked about the shelter, I did. He asked me to stop at the Quick Mart and he ran in and bought a bag of dogfood and cigarettes and a big orange soda for him, and a Yoo-Hoo for me and some snacks. He came out with this bag, giving me the disgusting drink first because once upon a time I drank this shit.

Then he unwrapped a Slim Jim for the dog and it chomped that down in a way made Edward laugh. Then he tore into his little powdered donuts and his Fritos, offering me all this crap with his doggie hands. I only took a donut because he held the pack toward me and let me dig it out myself.

"You bought dogfood," I say.

"Just a couple of nights. Come on, let's try it."

He holds the line of donuts toward me again.

I shake my head. To everything. Not that it does any good.

111111111111

Before I take my bath, between the toenails and the laughter I hear the slurp of water or the crunch of food. The sounds throw me as much as anything.

I keep looking for what's out of place. I don't want it to matter so much, but it does. I want to keep straightening and cleaning.

Edward is on the living room floor now, lying beside the dog, both of them on their stomachs only Edward is sound asleep. I'm holding his steaming food. "Edward," I say, nudging him with my foot. "Edward."

He bolts upright. "What? What happened?" He looks at me, orients himself.

He focuses sees the plate and reaches for it. He corrects his posture, folds his legs like a pretzel.

I go back in the kitchen for mine. He's not tucked in yet when I sit beside him. The dog is watching us so intently. "Bella…."

"It's all right," I say. I don't want to talk about the bathroom thing.

So we eat then. Just eat. It's so good, there's nothing else. Edward laughs a little at the dog's close watch. A log splits and falls off the grate and sparks shoot up and it scares the dog and his ears go forward and I have to smile.


	13. Chapter 13

My Ex-con 13

"C'mon," he says taking our plates and setting them on the coffee table where the dog is only too happy to do the dishes. "I'm gonna walk this fucker, get some of the ants out of his legs before lights out."

"No you're not," I say getting on my feet and taking our plates.

He, they rather, follow me into the kitchen.

Edward goes to the pot on the stove, takes the big spoon and helps himself, eating right out of it. Doggie sits on his haunches and makes a pitiful sound.

"Hey," I snap setting the dishes in the sink.

Edward licks the spoon, lets the dog take a couple of strokes with his sloppy tongue, then he sets it in the sink with the rest of the mess eyeing me up close, smirking a little. This better be because he just defied me. Again. And not because of the deal upstairs when he got a look.

"C'mon. You can get some exercise," he says, and something has come into his eyes, his attitude.

"I don't need exercise. I have this pain in my ass."

He smirks and leans a hip on the sink next to me. He shrugs the tattoo side. "I could help."

I bolt away from him.

"C'mon. I'm just…."

I have my hands on the back of one of my mis-matched chairs. "I give you an inch, you take a…."

"Nah, nah. Don't be like that," he says rounding the table by me. He almost touches my hands but I pull them back.

"You need to wash your clothes. It's downstairs."

"Yeah…when I get back," he says following me into the foyer.

I turn on the first stair. "You're not going out. You'll hit curfew. What if a cop stops you?"

"I'm walking my fucking dog."

"You're going to end up right back in. You and your dog."

"Walk with me then. Keep that boogey-man away."

I stare at him. "I thought maybe you grew up in there."

He laughs. "What I want to do that for?"

111111111111111111

"Fucker," I mutter.

He's running this dog way the heck down the street. He made a collar out of one of my old belts, and he attached a rope from the shed and voila, he's running into the dark like an idiot and we're three blocks from home now and I'm tired as shit.

I don't need to exercise like blondie. I'm on my feet all damn day.

I whistle. I hear the dog bark and Edward's command.

I turn for home. If he wants to get pulled in for curfew let him. That's all it would take to land him back in the slammer. "Damn him," I say aloud, turning and whistling again.

I can see him coming from far away. The dog is responding to the whistle, though I meant it for the beast on the other end of the rope. Knowing they follow at least, I do head for home now.

They catch up eventually and go a little past. He slows down, his feet slapping against the street. I'm on the sidewalk. "He's a damn brick shit-house," Edward pants laughing.

"What's the matter?" he says.

I look at him now, just look at him. I know the power of silence. People think it's all words, say the right thing. But Edward doesn't respect words. Not so much. And I don't either. Too many liars and lies.

So it's that way, him in the street running a dog rodeo, almost tripping once over the rope the dog winds around his feet.

We're home finally. "Goodnight," I say heading up.

"Yeah," he says. "Hey Bella."

I turn. He undoes the makeshift collar and stands there wrapping the rope around the belt. "I'm gonna do my clothes. You got some?"

No way he's washing my clothes. "You do your own."

"I'll pay you back…for all this."

"I don't want it. Just…get on your feet," I say.

"And get the hell out?" he says with this grin.

"Goodnight, Edward."

He watches me go up. When I reach the landing he says, "Goodnight B."


	14. Chapter 14

My Ex-con 14

He's not going to start it, the endless letting me know. He's not going to start it. I'm thirty years old. I own my own business. I've held mine with worse than him, far worse, and he's going to have to respect me.

I got tired that's all. And the bathroom deal. I lost some ground there.

He'll misbehave until the cows come home.

After I'm in bed he comes upstairs and my door is closed. The dog follows him and it cries when he closes the bathroom door and runs water. I hear him let it in the bathroom. Good luck on that.

He's stern, telling the dog to lie down.

I turn on my sound machine. As deaf as I am, I can't hear much beyond this ocean I now have hitting the beach.

I awaken later. A knock on my door. "Bella?" he says.

I look at my clock. Two thirty.

"What?" I call.

"Your phone keeps going off. It says it's Jasper."

"Just shut it off," I say, rolling over and putting the pillow over my head.

More knocking. "Bella," he says.

I roll out of bed, slam the pillow on the mattress and go to the door, yank it. The dog starts to come in my room and I block it with my legs. "No!" I yell.

Edward pulls the dog back. He puts the phone in my outstretched hand and I shut it off.

"He sending you messages or something?"

"Yeah," I say. "Go back to bed."

Well technically it's the couch. And yeah, Jasper texts me all hours of the day and night. My control is in not answering anything after ten. Doesn't stop him but keeps my sanity.

"I know he's on that job," he says.

"Yeah it's just…." I wave at him and Rin-Tin-Tin.

"I don't know. Fuck. I thought I got out…you sleep different there. You're not tired for one thing. And noise. Like on the farm, the cows at night. You sleep one eye open, you know?"

"I don't," I say. "You should be tired now." He worked all day and he ran a couple of miles.

I start to close the door.

"Bella," he says. "How come there's no guy?"

"Get away from my door, Edward."

"I missed you B. Let me say it."

There's horrific pounding on the front door and the dog takes off plunging down the stairs and barking.

Edward goes tearing after the dog telling me to stay where I am. I follow pretty much on his heels. He reaches the door, pushes the dog aside with his leg. "Who is this?" he yells.

"Your fuckin' PO you inmate-shit," the voice answers other side of the door. It's pretty much who I thought.

Edward pulls the door and the crazy blonde hair, arms around each other laughing and back slapping. My brother.

"Hey," he yells pulling back from Edward and looking at the dog. It's been sniffing all over him. "I thought something was up my ass. I thought Alice was here."

"Oh nice," I say, but they don't hear. I'm the one who closes the door. Looks like they're ready to start Frenching any minute.

Now they separate. Jasper's skinny as a whip, still wearing his workclothes.

"You're supposed to be in Kansas City," I say deadpan. I've learned, over the years, to save my energy. But seeing them together, I take a deep breath. It gets me more than I want it to. And though there are but two of them, I know that third person they create together has just moved into the room.

"Where the hell this thing come from?" Jasper says and he's bent over petting the dog. "Pit bull?" he finally looks at me. "What?"

I shrug. "Why are you here?" I say hoping for an answer this time.

He does it, gives me the line 'we're not in Kansas anymore.' He adds, "Big Bad."

That's me. Big Bad B.

"You ever answer your phone Bella?"

"Not after ten," I say, arms folded. It's freezing in here.

He explains why he's home early, a chemical spill in the plant. They had to walk out, leave everything where it was until the EPA had gone over everything looking for chemical trace.

"How long is the shut-down?" I ask.

"As long as it takes."

"What about Artie?"

"He stayed, that putz."

I have more questions, but so does he. He wants to know what Edward is doing here…in the house. And where the dog came from. He's patting his chest, winding it up.

But just as quickly he moves into the kitchen, my fridge. I'm waking up enough to know he's troubled. It could be a number of things, the job, his meds. I don't think he's using. God he'd better not be. I know the difference between his meds and the illegal kind. I just need to see his eyes. And there's that third thing, his natural high when he's not taking anything.

In the kitchen he pulls out the pan with the rest of the dumplings, curses joyfully when he takes off the lid. He gets a plate, piles it high and heats this in the microwave while he talks…rambles, repeats most of what he already said. "You ah, seen Alice, talked to Alice?" He's agitated.

"No," I say. "Why?"

Edward sits at the table and I lean in the door, feeling the chill of this house and this turn of events. Edward is watching me as much as Jasper. And I'm watching him. His initial happiness has settled into something older. Caution. I see…it's not the same. They were the ones with secrets. I felt outside of it, always. But tonight, Edward is as outside of Jasper's loop as I am. We're just three people. The closeness—it's different now. Our arms taken from one another's waists, we've stepped back, a triangle with no sides. It's been that way a long time.

It hits me hard. And sad. I believed in them once…when we were young.

"What are you doing here?" Jasper says to Edward, more serious now as he digs in the drawer for a fork.

Edward keeps staring at him.

"No dude. Like what the fuck? My old lady has skipped town. Then I go by your room and it's fuckin' curfew and I can't be seen around you. So I pay the guy, like my last fifty and he says you ain't there. So here I come. I know you're here, man. I just know it." He gets the plate from the micro-wave. He turns then, waving his fork at us. "Fuckin' no-brainer, ain't it? She just lost that old boy and you ain't ever given up on this."

"Fuck you," Edward says quietly.

I straighten from the door. "What do you mean she skipped town?"

"Fuck you," Jasper says to Edward ignoring me, the fork still now. "She tell you that old pervert left her something?"

"Jasper," I say. He's telling my business.

"No fuck that," Jasper says to me.

Edward stands up.

"You finally get your dick in my sister?" Jasper says. He's combative. Shit, not at three in the morning. He gets going, I can't call the cops. But my neighbors can.

"What do you mean about Alice?" I repeat more loudly.

He looks at me then. Swallows. His eyes are wild. "That fucking Maria. Remember that bitch? I got a kid. Eight year old boy. Charlie. I'm a fuckin' daddy."

My arms come unfolded. "How do you know?"

"She got killed a couple of years ago and the granma's pretty much always raised him and she died. My name is down on the fucking birth certificate. Social services call me in last month to give a DNA and it tests out. So I tell my old lady and she's pissed and she comes around, they do a home study and it's all good. Then she starts the math and she's like, you cheated on me and that's all I fuckin' hear and I say nah we were on a break," now he's talking to Edward. "I never cheated on that bitch. And she knows just how to push my buttons and we have a big ass fight and I guess as soon as I go out of town she takes off. They're bringing this kid up from Texas on fuckin' Monday. Alice was supposed to be there. How the hell am I gonna take care of a kid?"

I don't remember crossing the room or knocking the plate of food out of his hand. I really don't, but the dog has the mess pretty cleaned up by the time I realize I'm in a kitchen chair and Edward is telling me to calm down. I hear Jasper sobbing somewhere behind me and I think my foot is bleeding from where I stepped on the broken plate because Edward is kneeling before me holding a rag there.


	15. Chapter 15

My Ex-con 15

"You need stitches," Edward says to me upon examining the cut on the bottom of my freaking foot.

"No," I say.

"I'll take you," he says.

"No," I say. "It's after curfew."

"Fuck that," he says.

"No," I say more forcefully. "I've got gauze upstairs."

"I'll take you," Jasper says wiping his face on one of my dishtowels.

"You go home," I say.

"Bella…."

"Home. We'll talk in the morning."

"I'm sorry it's so fucked." He makes this sound I hate, this angry sound and starts to pound himself on the head.

"Dude," Edward says forcefully getting on his feet. "Listen to Bella. Go home and get some sleep. You can't fix any of it tonight by pounding your fucking brains out. You're making it worse."

Jasper must look at him because there's a few seconds of silence. Edward speaks more softly. "Get some sleep man. It always looks better in the morning, you know that. It's a kid. Not cancer."

"Fuck you," Jasper says, but there's no fire in it. "If she calls you B tell her I didn't cheat on her. We were on a fuckin' break."

"Just not a break from fucking. Got it," I mutter.

Edward is smiling as he kneels before me like he's about to put the glass slipper on my foot. He wraps the towel around the wound and gets beside me like he's going to pick me up.

"I can walk," I say.

"Okay Toughie," he says. "Go for it."

I hear the front door close and hope to God it means Jasper is gone. "Is he gone?" I ask.

"Yeah," Edward says.

I start to hobble, but with one foot it's hard. Before I can think Edward picks me up. He hefts me a little and carries me right up the stairs. I try not to look at him, but I do a couple of times. He looks back, a little smile. He sets me down at the bathroom door and I hobble in and sit on the closed toilet seat.

"Last time I saw you on the toilet I liked it better," he says. I'm a little thrown for a minute, then remember hours earlier when he caught me naked.

He opens my medicine cabinet and gets the tape and gauze. I have butterfly bandages too. I've had plenty of injuries rehabbing.

The dog is stretching his neck across the threshold sniffing away. "He better not shit the house with all he ate," I say.

"I'll take him out in the yard after this," Edward says.

He kneels before me with the stuff. He looks things over and says, "Come on. I can do this better if you lay on your stomach. He pulls me up and gets an arm around me and half carries me into my bed. He's had to bend over because he's a lot taller than me.

He gets me there and I lie down on my stomach across the bed and bend my knee and he comes back in with the stuff and then my toes are against him. "Fucking Jasper," he mutters.

"Fucking Jasper," I mutter.

"Will she come back, that Alice?"

Suddenly I feel the cool sting of antiseptic and I clench the blanket and curse loudly.

"Sorry," he says. "Will she?" He's dabbing softly with something like cotton next to the wound.

"I don't know," I sigh. "Maybe this is where she gets off. She's been so good for him."

"Roll over and hold the wound closed so I can tape it," he says.

I roll over and sit up and put my ankle on the opposite knee. I hold the wound closed. It's not that long, but one part is deep. I feel that.

He's kneeling close, so close to me, his head right there, and with my legs spread this wide it just feels wrong, and he's carefully putting the bandage there, but I see that tremor in his hands again, like yesterday. He smooths the edges of the bandage. I can't be getting turned on. Not now.

He looks at me, and he drops back a little. "What?" he says.

"Hurry up," I say kind of mean. It's just….

"I am," he says all patient, ridiculously patient. He's not himself either. He opens another bandage and bends to the work and I close my eyes to try and pretend this isn't weird and kind of…something.

He's pressing the edges and he does a third one. "You can open your eyes," he says, and he puts a couple of pads over the wound, then he has the gauze and he's starting to unroll some, then his hands on my foot and my ankle, and he starts to roll the gauze around me, and I'm not sure when I look down that I can't lightly smell something feminine, and some panic goes through me. This is just too much.

"I have to lie down," I say, and he holds my foot while I scoot back further and lie back, but now he's standing and he is looking all down me. He turns to the side and puts his foot on the rail and props my foot on his knee. Then he wraps the guaze round and round.

"I like taking care of you for once," he says. "In prison, you want something to do. You don't get touched…for weeks, and then when you do, it's a shove or something. But you don't get to take care of anybody. It's a…one of the things you miss."

"Were you hurt in there?" I know we're too broken down right now, but I want to know this and just a couple of hours ago it seemed like I'd never be able to ask.

He laughs some, gets scissors and cuts the gauze and smooths the end. Then he takes the Ace bandage and begins to wrap this over everything. He keeps looking at me. His eyes have darkened, but I can't be sure.

"I feel that," he says softly, fastening the clip then smoothing his hand to my knee.

I lick over my lips. "Don't," I whisper.

"You feel it too," he says gently laying my leg on the bed. My foot is dangling over the side.

"C'mon," he says taking my arm while I change direction and get vertical. He pulls my covers out from beneath me, and places them over me, leaving my foot out.

"Hurts, doesn't it," he says. I'm not sure what he's talking about—my foot—or me inside.

"Can you get me some Aleve?"

He goes back in the bathroom and I let out a breath.

He comes back with water in a paper-cup and the bottle of pills. I sit up and he hands me the cup and dumps three in his hand. I take them from his palm and down them quick. I'm an excellent pill taker.

He takes the cup and I lie back down and he messes with the covers again, his knuckles brushing my shoulder, my collar bone. I don't know why I'm letting him touch me so casually, but I am.

"I don't want to leave you," he says.

"The dog," I say pretending it's my nurse talking.

"Can I come back?"

"No," I say. "I'll see you in," I look at the clock, "an hour."

"You're not working with that foot."

"Yes I am," I say.

He's shaking his head. "You're the most…."

"Don't forget to take out the dog," I say turning my face away.

I will him to leave. I hear his footsteps to the door, he snaps the light and some seconds pass and I think go, go, go.

"Goodnight B." He closes my door.

And now I stare. Do I feel? Oh.


	16. Chapter 16

My Ex-con 16

I am late in the morning. Edward helps me but I have slept in. If not for his knocking, rather pounding on my door, I might have slept for hours. I suspect he has not slept at all.

For the day, he has put the dog in the carriage house. He plans to repair my fence. I just listen. I insist on driving. I drive with my left foot. In spite of Aleve, my foot is throbbing.

I call Riley. He has already started. I call Artie in Kansas he is still held out of the plant by the EPA. I tell him to come home for the weekend and we'll go back when the investigation lifts. He should be pissed at Jasper, but he works with him all the time because he's the older mule in the yoke and he keeps on plowing no matter what kind of bee Jasper gets up his ass.

So it could be worse. It has been worse.

Edward and I stop at the drugstore and he goes in with the card to my medical saving account to buy crutches. He adjusts them for me in the parking lot, me standing there, the van door open, and him fitting them under my arms. It's more touching, but I surrender to it now.

So that's how I get around. And I do work. Just not as well. Mostly I boss Edward. That's all right. We're together. And the lady of the house seems to know but she likes to look at him, and she does look.

On the way home that evening I say, "I wonder if Alice came home." Then I wish I hadn't said it. Her number is in my phone, but I haven't messaged her. Our conversations usually center on Jasper. He gives us enough to keep the thread going. I watch over him at work, she gets him there and takes care of everything else. We're his handlers and that's our unity. But if she walks, I can't ask more of her. Who understands better than I?

"What about Monday? The kid?" Edward says. Giving words to it—damn.

"He can't," I say. I mean Jasper. He can't have a kid.

"I was in foster care," Edward says and we all know how that turned out. Sort of. He doesn't talk about it to me, but I know from Jasper that Edward opted out.

"Maybe there's another relative," I say.

"He was with the grandmother. If there was another chump they wouldn't be looking Jasper's way."

Yeah. I've thought of that. "Well, a kid is sure as hell a longer commitment than a dog," I say like I'm Einstein.

I replay the pleasure of pummeling Jasper all over again. I hope I smacked his face a few times. He's an idiot.

"Eight years old. What's that like?" he says.

"Hell if I remember. But Charlie is a cute name."

Edward doesn't say, but he's looking at me.

"What?" I snap. "Something funny?"

He shakes his head. Puts a hand over a smile.

I'm glad I've got the road to look at and not his dumb-ass.

I open and close my hands on the wheel. I've thought of little else all day. My foot won't let me forget. I've never struck Jasper before. I remember lashing out, just hitting. I don't know if he was crying because I'd hurt him, or because I tried to or maybe over Alice…over the kid. Maybe both or all of it or fuck me. I'm exhausted more than anything. A child.

I think of a goofy children's book called, "A Child for Jasper." Once upon a time there was a yo-yo man named Jasper. He was up and down and all around, cat in the cradle, walk the dog, loop the loop. Then one day a fairy came and into Jasper's arms she laid a sleeping child. Its name was Charlie. And now Charlie got to be in the yo-yo show with his new dad Jasper. And the boy learned how to swing and get tied in knots and snapped all out, then snapped right back. He learned so many tricks from his yo-yo dad that he eventually became a yo-yo man too, able to do all the tricks his father had done and add a few more of his own. The end.

"What's so funny," Edward says.

I sigh. "Just thinking. I could write a book on Jasper, you know?"

"Hold off on that. The best chapters might not have happened yet," Edward says.

"Best." I repeat. "Like what?"

"Remains to be seen," he says. "So what you gonna do?"

"Get some chicken to take home," I say, subject bucketed for now.

"That it?" he says.

"I remember you like coleslaw," I say.

"You remember that?" he grins.

It's getting awfully friendly up in here. I just shrug. I remember.


	17. Chapter 17

My Ex-con 17

He still likes the coleslaw. He's still eating and we're at the kitchen table on this Friday night. I'm writing paychecks. I hand him his. "Fuck no," he says seeing how much while he still chews on a chicken leg. It's not so much, believe me. But to someone who hasn't made shit in eight years, and not much more than that before it might seem substantial.

"Don't get it all greasy," I say.

"Room and board B." He holds up the chicken.

"You're a carpenter, right? The porch…." Am I letting him stay? Am I?

He stares a minute. "You won't be sorry."

Maybe I already am. I smile and go back to my checkbook.

"What's that smile?" he says going for a wing.

"I smile when I want to."

"Always a mystery, huh?" he keeps staring at me while he chews, while he delights in the chicken. Food was often a challenge for him, where the next bit was coming from. He loves crap and he's a slave to anything homemade. He's lamented the fate of the dumplings all afternoon.

"What are you thinking…being free?" I ask.

He hasn't put his paycheck down yet. "What do you think it is in that fucking place? It's an institution for fuck-ups. You don't get smarter about the right things without monumental fucking effort. You free Bella Swan?"

I hit the edge of the pay envelopes on the table. Love that sound. "You're like Jesus," I say. "Answering questions with more questions. That's if you answer at all. You say I'm mystery. You're a…locked box." More like the black box after a plane crashes, but I don't say.

He shrugs, paycheck in one hand, chicken in the other.

"You get smarter?" I ask.

His eyes are more green. He's not as pretty as when he went in, but somehow more deadly…just this man-animal. I almost smile again. If he could read my thoughts he'd love that—me calling him a man-animal.

When he looks straight at me, those eyes. I've been his focal point, that's how I feel. He sees the world around…me, even when we drive.

"You never said…get hurt in there?" I'm rocking my foot under the table. I make myself hold his gaze.

He's polished another bone. He tosses that over his plate graveyard.

"I got in some shit. Not much, but it's one big cage. Your turn comes."

"Did…."

"Did someone get in my backdoor?" he laughs.

Now I have to smile. It's nothing to smile about but….

"No," he says.

"I mean…eight years. Is that possible for a guy?"

"To what…not fuck a woman?"

"Crude."

"Yeah. Fuckin's crude…if you do it right." Now he is laughing. Oh, we are not going to talk about this.

He's got his chair on the back two legs. He's balancing back and forth still holding that slip of blue paper. I can tell he's all in on the topic.

"I never slapped the pony with the guys in my cell either," he laughs. "Not even when I was…."

His smile goes away then and he lets the chair drop solid.

"You high the whole time? You told me you weren't using," I say.

"First two years. I was…adjusting. There're so many drugs in there. Cheap too. Zombies make good prisoners."

"I knew I was taking a chance keeping you flush. I knew you'd probably stay comatose."

"That's it B. You knew."

We are just looking now. I close my checkbook, pull my cap off, bring my braid over my shoulder and start to undo it. "That money was yours. It was all you allowed."

"Don't say you didn't know. You knew me when I went in. Paying me off? For what? Just taking care of the bird. That's what you do. Even for me." He's watching my fingers undo my hair. He licks his shiny lips.

"Yeah. A reckless fuck." I toss my hair over my shoulder and pull my clenched fists onto my lap. He wants to make it cheap, I'll go along.

"Maybe I wasn't supposed to last. Maybe I was supposed to buy out with that money."

"You think I wanted to kill you?" me

He laughs. "Sometimes. Definitely the last time I saw you."

"And you were so endearing."

"I did you a favor."

"Telling me you didn't want me to visit, to call?"

"I didn't want you in there," he says forcefully.

"You never changed your mind. Never called." Never told me to wait.

He smirks. I'm reminded of his arrogance. "I did my time. Head down. Just like I told you I would. "

"You talk like you're mad at me. Are you?"

He shakes his head and looks away. "How could I be mad at you B?"

"You are," I say.

"You don't want to hear…what I am."

I feel these angry tears threatening. "I'm not the one who doesn't want to hear," I say.

"Me? I'm all ears B. You want to tell me something, I'll be your priest."

Long time coming. I hoped it wouldn't show up—the truth. Am I afraid of it? Terrified.

"Shit. You gonna let me smoke in here?" He's laid his check on the table. He's already patting his chest.

"One," I say. And I know what a mistake that is.

"Shit. One." He's digging in his pocket. He puts one in his mouth and lights it. He always looked good doing that. "You talk about writing a book-you get in prison, the past slams into you B, piles up like railroad cars behind you, and you can just be there and tell yourself it ain't happening. Get high, live or die. But you get thrown in solitary and don't have the way out in your pocket, it's just those walls and those railroad cars." He flicks ash over his plate and rubs over his head.

I know this is one of those times to keep quiet. Usually, that's my go-to. But now I'm full of words. "Why…were you in solitary?"

He laughs. "You get there. They need your cell, you break the rules, they think you do, it's just your time. No nothing. First couple years it didn't matter where I was B. I was just getting through. Biding my time."

"What…made you stop."

"I almost died. I mean…I looked down on me, sprawled on that table."

My stomach drops empty and sick. "You shitting me Edward?"

He slowly shakes his head. "The infirmary. They worked on me. Woke up in the hospital, no idea how I got there. They sent me back to prison. I…got quiet then. Got disciplined. I got clean. Cold Turkey. Six years and no fucking chip, not even a cookie." He is looking at me, unwavering there. It's something Jasper might say to me, something dark and wild, this whole story. But this is Edward.

"God?" I ask. "Tell me someone…helped you."

"Two guys died right in front of me. They kill you in there, you don't go easy. The weapons…rough homemade so it's like…a hack job. Muscle and fingers, hands, teeth. I said, this can't be all." He looks at me. "But I knew you, B. I knew there's good, see?" He takes a drag, squints and looks at me through the smoke.

"Me? I'm the one asked you to take the deal," I say, with all the guilt such an admonition brings.

"Yeah," he says. "You were right. If it went to court, Jasper would have been in there with me. You were right, B."

"I was wrong, Edward. I should have left it like it was. I should have stayed out of it. You're the one I should have been helping. How can you say it? How can you say it? James Mason put it all on you and his daddy got his ass out with what…picking up trash and cleaning carpets at the church? Give me a fucking break."

"You couldn't stand up on it B. I seen this all my life, guys with the old man behind them. That's why this kid…this Charlie boy of Jasper's—he's got to have a dad out there B," he says, "elsewise it's you and your buddies, as fucked up as you are, Lord of the fucking Flies." He digs out a smoke and lights up. It doesn't matter now. All of my rules. "Tell you what, no kid of mine is gonna run the streets like some bastard. You didn't have it and neither did I, but no kid of mine will eat out of the garbage. I'm gonna be the meanest fucking father that ever lived. You mess with my little spermazola you are gonna feel the wrath of this old man."

I'm staring now.

"What?" he says.

"That come out of one of your vacations in solitary?" Not to mention he made it sound like I'm the mama.

He waves me off. "Mason had the dough, the pull. It went the right way. A trial would have dragged it out, for what? Put you in trouble."

"Me?"

"Mason's dad. Old man Jack, big ass white collar crook. He made it so fucking clear. We take the deal, you're fine."

"What…he approached you? I asked you not to push for trial. I asked you to take it. Me." I'm wiping at tears. "Jasper…he's not strong like you…."

He takes a drag, eyes me so close. "Fuckin' nasty world sometimes," he says.

"Jack Mason threatened me?" I ask to be clear.

"His muscle. Guys like that…they stay back." He pushes his plate aside, his hands on the table, the smoke in his fingers. "I wasn't trying to protect Jasper, B. We did the crime. Protecting that chump was your gig."

He looks straight at me, and my hands are clenched in my lap.

"You were always mine."


	18. Chapter 18

My Ex-con 18

Let me tell you what it was like ten years ago—what I was like. Well even further back, it was Jasper, my brother with the wild, loyal eyes. And there was me.

We were officially on our own since I was fifteen and he was thirteen, unofficially on our own from my earliest memories, in an apartment days on end, I have these pictures in my mind, a dark room and shadows, little voices, the sound of crying, his warm slobber, and stories and a flashlight and cold food from a can, his little mouth opening like a bird's might, and his hair, so curly around my fingers, my very small fingers. I'm under five and he's two years under me. There must have been times I kept him alive. You see how it got started.

From about ten or so they separate us for these long intervals and we pine for each other. He stays with Mom, I go with an aunt. There will be other moves for both of us, shuffled like cards and rearranged until one of our caretakers gets back on the dope they kicked when they took us in, or a new boyfriend comes along.

A new man is always a shake-up. He doesn't work so he's always around and as I develop he starts to say things, do things, or he moves his kids in so I can nanny and whoops she catches him with me or some other ho, cause that's what she calls me, and back to Mom I go.

But around fifteen and thirteen Jasper and I are together again and we're living with someone we call Pat. We are used to her disappearing, not coming home for a couple of days, once for a week. But this is more. She leaves and we never see her again.

My brother and I are tired of the revolving door so we look at our bullshit options and decide we'll see how long we can stay put before someone catches on and comes in to 'save' us from the first peace and quiet we've ever known.

After all, we have skills. Jasper has learned the streets, stealing, robbing, selling drugs, scrapping metal sometimes. Food pantry and piles of old clothes at the local church are our Walmart. Somehow we make that first rent, but after that, if we can't and Jasper's not around I let that guy that collects touch me and I get him off. I negotiate first, then fight and scratch when he tries to keep going. He threatens to tell the authorities and so do I, some different, some the same, so it's a stand-off and I tell him it won't happen again. But it does a few more times cause we have to beg, borrow and steal every month.

But I've got standards. I only let the old rent dude touch me over my clothes and it almost feels…powerful how obedient he becomes.

I meet James Mason that same year, my freshmen year of public high school but I'm a little older due to periods of no school at all. He is a rich boy, the one with the dad he hates. He throws the best parties they say. Food and a pool, lots to drink and smoke. Lots to take if you aren't obvious about it, and Jasper is good.

So we go, as a business opportunity.

Now I'm not a ho if survival isn't involved. I can't imagine doing any of it for fun or because my daddy didn't love me. For me, using my body is a means to an end-survival. I can't say it any plainer than that.

Thing is James is a throw away too. His dad has a big construction business and is never home.

James is always messing up, getting kicked out of one school after another for drugs, selling and using. But his father is always there to pay the piper, kick the shit out of James, and get him back in a new institution and out of his hair.

Since that first night, James looks up to Jasper. And he can drive and he has a car. In return, Jasper keeps James in trouble and drugs.

They are their own Butch Cassidy and Sundance. James finds out when rich people are out of town, people from his father's club, and he and Jasper rob the houses, look for cash mostly, one or two things to sell. There is no stopping them.

So Jasper has money and he lives for blocks of time with James. When he comes home, he's Robin Hood. He fills the fridge, and pays the rent and I have to admit, wrong as it is, it feels safer than anything I've known before.

We were going down a road, but I stay in school.

Then I'm sixteen and a sophomore. Someone from the church that kept us going for so long with their free food baskets and their free thrift shop, someone who has noticed me there helping myself all the time invites me to a neighborhood clean-up program.

This is how I meet Mr. Carson. He owns a residential painting company. I do such nice work on the clean-up, particularly the painting project at the center for the senior citizens, Carson offers me a job over the summer.

I don't know what to think. I keep waiting for Carson to make his real move, put his old black hand somewhere it doesn't belong. But it doesn't happen and he just keeps coming up with opportunities for me.

I try to pull Jasper in cause the guilt I live with for so many things I've done is getting pretty thick. My survival plan had worked when I was younger. Now that I am around decent people who are nice and going into homes seeing how regular people live, I feel more and more like shit inside.

I want something better than what I've known. I want to deserve the trust they give me.

I tell Jasper if he's going to run with Mason he can't come around anymore. And I won't let James Mason come to our apartment either way.

We fight like crazy and Jasper storms off.

But it doesn't last. He comes home sometimes but he can't stay because we fight about the drugs.

Sometimes he reforms. Once he works for Mr. Carson for a whole week, but he can't stick with it. The money comes too slow and too hard. So Jasper continues his career path of street punk, and I keep going to school and learn how to paint and be kind of normal.

By the end of my junior year Jasper has a falling out with Mason. It's about money or drugs or drugs and money. We go to see Mr. Carson and Jasper is sorry and Mr. Carson wants to put him in rehab or at least AA at the church, but Jasper doesn't want to get caught in the system and he doesn't need some fucking group. So we start on our own program of reform—me on his ass.

It lasts about two weeks and Jasper takes off. Next I know Mason shows up at our apartment looking for Jasper who messed up a deal or something. Mason is high and out of his mind. I don't want to call the cops, because I'm one month under eighteen and I'm paranoid.

So I try to handle him myself, and somewhere in there he thinks I'm hiding Jasper or I am Jasper. He gets to whaling on me. He is high and has that crazy strength I can't match.

Jasper finds me a couple of hours later. He takes me to the hospital and I can't even fight it. A broken arm, a black eye, and a concussion. I won't let him hang around because I know they'll think it was him.

I tell them I fell down the stairs and I give them my mother's address. I also give them Mom's phone number but it's not good anymore. I just act like I don't know.

I'll never tell Jasper. He will kill James. I know he is probably headed to prison, but I'm not going to get him charged with homicide.

Besides, James lives on the good side of town. He leaves early for boarding school.

In the time I am healing Mr. Carson pays for my care. The church people come around and I get doted on for the first time in my life. I don't feel dirty anymore, I feel loved and I am making a couple of friends. I promise God, myself, and the whole big world I'll do something good with my life.

And once I heal, Mr. Carson sends me on jobs, after school sometimes and on weekends. Even though my hearing leaks away, sixty in one ear, forty in the other. They aren't sure why.

I need hearing aids. I need glasses for the up-close work, the specialty workshops Mr. Carson encourages me to attend.

I figure I'll be able to save enough eventually, and maybe build something for me and Jasper so he can turn around and do something good with his life too.

So that's how it is for a couple of years, best years I've known so far. I get a better place and I'm making a life, see, one with unicorns and hearts and flowers. Sometimes Jasper is there and he's good. Sometimes he's gone, one, two weeks at a time but I press on.

I'm starting my own business, specializing in painting techniques. They're just getting popular and I know how to do them. One lady to another. I'm busy.

That carries me to nineteen. School is behind me. I'm nearly happy except for the worry over my drop-out brother, his moods, his whims, his poor decisions, his promises to reform, to do better. We're fighting so much I'm thinking of asking him to leave for good this time.

Then I come home that night, tired as dirt from glazing one of those living rooms with the cathedral ceilings. I hear the laughter through the door before I put my key in. I unlock and go inside and he looks around the door, real quick, pulls back and I know it's not Jasper. "Fuck, who's that?" he says.

I enter the kitchen then and he's sitting there, a piece of my bologna in his hand. Some kind of life in those eyes roofed by the heaviest brows and up higher this wild hair.

I know a punk when I see one, even when he's pretty and smiling at me that way.

So I make a deal about my bologna, but that's not it. I could care less. Thing is Jasper doesn't need another James Mason, and I surely don't, but this kid isn't any of that. His boots are scuffed, his jeans full of holes, his leather jacket is more broken in than a rodeo saddle. Something in me wants to give him a chance, but something else wants to send him on his way.

"This is B," Jasper says. "Ed just got into town. I told him he could stay with us for a few days."

He gets on his feet. "Yeah I'm Edward," he says.

I know from Mr. Carson, be fair, be generous, but set a line, always set a line.

"We work around here for what we get," I say.

He grins at me then. "Sure," he says. He digs his wallet out of his back pocket and drops some bills on the table. "That good?" he says collecting the money and holding the bills toward me. I figure it's all of seven dollars.

"C'mon Bella," Jasper is saying.

I take the money. "No weapons. No drugs, no alcohol, no girls, and none of the shit you steal comes under my roof. One strike. This is my home. You need something I got, just ask, but you steal from me you're out. You take the couch, fold your shit in the morning because we like to sit there sometimes. You can stay for a week. One week. And I like it quiet, don't pee on my floor and if you use the bathtub wash it out when you're done. Clear?"

He has this grin. I know better than to be taken in. I raise my chin some. But he reaches for my hand and I go along. I shake.

"You've got warm hands," he says.


	19. Chapter 19

My Ex-con 19

When he tells me the thing—that I was his gig, he stares at me some, finishes that smoke and he's laughing. "You don't know what to do with that now," he says.

There was never anything to do with it.

Does he think I didn't know? He gave it words, that's all. The feelings aren't new—eight long years, a knife, nowhere to go.

I went cold turkey too, as soon as he went in. I gave him to Jasper then and I stepped back and built this life.

He has to jump fences and break walls. He didn't own shit so he owned it all in his mind. Now that has caught up. One hour in a cage…at a time. One brush stroke…at a time. One dollar…at a time. One conversation, like this…at a time.

A door you knock upon, a fare you pay before you cross. You learn the steps or you don't know how you got where you are.

He wants me to know how it was? Well I've seen and there was no us. There was me. There was him. But no us.

Maybe he changed in there, maybe he didn't. But everything under his words stirs words in me because I feel it too.

He went out for me, to avenge. He had it…revenge. And that's all he had. He settled for that and got taken away. Worth it? Revenge gets you stuck and he's been stuck for eight years. But I haven't stood still.

You survive like me, you aren't moved easy. If I don't know what to do with something I don't do anything at all. That's kept me alive more than once.

So the question for me-how do I get up from this table and carry on?

The same way I always do. I just get up.

"When's the last time you've been in a real store," I say looking over my shoulder once I reach the doorway.

His eyes are all over me. He's going to keep pushing. No way are we sitting around here tonight. Anyway, comes a Friday after work you can find me doing my one-stop shopping. I've got a routine and it's important. He needs to see.

"You cleaning up?" he says like this is some kind of big deal.

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter. You can go in those if you want," I say, meaning his dirty overalls. It may be Super, but it's still Walmart.

He's staring at me, some kind of smirk in him, but I know he's looking for the way in. "I'll clean this," he says meaning the mess from dinner.

So I stump upstairs, hopping on one foot, and get cleaned up, change out of my clothes and into my jeans. I put my hair in a ponytail and put a boot on one foot and a thick sock on the hurt one, and I'm feeling happy, I guess. Really happy. Because he doesn't know how big it's gotten—Walmart. It's the great big now.

1111111111

He gets the cart. "Oh shit," he says as we enter the store. "Look at those cookies. We need those?"

"Not those," I say, because there are better ones, but I'm smiling because he is like a kid.

We bypass the deli and he goes right to the fruit and vegetables and he says, "Lots of colors," and he means the peppers and tomatoes and then the oranges.

I get it, see it like he does and it must be overwhelming. A couple of women look at him, hear him say that about the colors, but that's not all about him that makes you look, even if you don't always see someone so happy over produce. They smile at him and he smiles at me and shrugs taking a pack of corn on the cob. "Can you cook this?" he says.

"Yes," I say. "I can also show you how to do it."

He places it in the cart. "Holy shit look at those apples. There's four kinds." He picks one up, looks around.

"Don't do it," I say taking it from him and bagging some up instead. "Let's go look at the clothes."

"Lead the way," he says.

When we get there, he's standing looking at the men's department, looking around at the people just as much.

"You can spend your whole paycheck right here," I say heading for the socks and underwear.

"B come on. I'm putting my money on the food now."

"I got the food. You're working it off, remember? You need stuff," I say looking over the socks.

He gets socks, underwear, t-shirts, jeans, two new shirts, sweat pants for home. We go to the shoe department and he gets kicks. He gets workboots too. We are at two hundred and fifty by my calculations, but we haven't been frivolous. I throw on a sock hat and then the jackets are on clearance, and I've never seen him in anything but the one, not all this time I've known him that old leather. But this is a work jacket.

"B no, it's…no."

He told me once I wasn't his mother, but I pretty well am right now. He takes the jacket to put it back but I grab onto it and he holds up his hands and I put it back in the cart and if I could I'd take the cart from him and push off, but since I can't, I take off on my crutches.

"B," he says, but I'm not mad. I'm leading.

I'm thinking we need a big bag of dogfood cause buying it one small bag at a time at the Quickmart is no way to go. And we need a real leash.

He comes after, but he's all serious now. "B, I'll get this stuff over-time. I don't like you doing so much. It's not fair."

I don't know. Call it a delayed reaction. I'm intense but I keep my voice low. "Let's not get stuck on what's fair," I say.

He's looking down at me. "About everything?"

"Good people don't worry about fair. They just do what needs to be done," I say.

It's a few more seconds of looking. "I guess you'd know," he says, his hand reaching to touch my face or my hair, but he pulls it back.

He's wise. I give. I give. But he must not take, not the smallest thing, not now.

Or I'll fall.

1111111111111111111111111

"Four hundred and twenty-six dollars," he's groaning as we pile things into my car.

I don't say anything. It costs to live these days.

But back home once we've loaded in, it's a birthday party. He's got things now, wearing one new shirt over the other, tags and all, and the hat, but he has no room of his own, not even a drawer.

I know we said the carriage house, but it's not ready. It just makes sense I give him a room with a real bed.

"Yeah, in here?" he says sticking his head in the small bedroom next to mine. There's another across the hall but this has the big window, the light.

Thing is the bathroom is up here and barring the couch, there's nowhere to sleep downstairs.

So I go for sheets and he's dumping his things on the chair. I read in here sometimes. One time. I have books all over the house. But I don't get far.

I float a sheet over the bed and he's right there, tucking the corners on the double bed. The top sheet comes after.

"Another one?" he says, and I smell my fabric softener. I take care of things.

So he grabs the sail and we bring it down together and smooth it with our hands. I know what I'm doing, but he's just pretending he can make a decent bed.

I have two thick blankets and I shake these out.

I'm putting on the pillowcases and he's throwing things in one of the drawers. He closes that.

"Thanks B," he says, hands on his hips. He takes off the top shirt, then the one beneath. I take those to the empty closet. Hangers wait there. I hang up one then the other. When I close the doors I smile at him.

"You've done…good B. With everything. You're the one…out of us. You did something. I always knew you would. You're a go-getter. Smart as fuck."

I'm not anything. Mr. Carson threw a rope and I grabbed on. I don't need a brass band, but it's nice that he knows.

He doesn't compete with me. He's proud. He was always like that…proud of me.

I shrug. "You gonna walk the dog?"

"Yeah," he says, and we snap out of that place…like space…drifting.

"I'll see you downstairs," I say.

And he wears his new coat and his kicks and we walk out there, and it's so cold the night sky looks like black ice. I'm tired. It's so sore under my arms. But I want to breathe in this quiet.

Edward runs that dog, it runs him, and I walk a little ways, one streetlight to another, the circle of light thrown down in the dark, just like life, you look for those good patches, the light braided through it all.

"B," he shouts running back, the dog headed straight for me.

I stumble out of the way and he grins at me as he rushes past, says, "He's just fuckin' with you."

I feel the first needles of ice hit my face.

They said it was coming and here it is maybe. I head for home.

111111111

The electronics department at Walmart blew his mind. The flatscreens all lined up like that. The I-pads and pods and tablets and the video games. When he went inside Wii was just released and Playstation 3, but the improvements blow his mind.

We look at phones. "They got like the DSL inside?" he asks because you can play games on them.

"Something like that," I say.

"I got one of these, who would I talk to, B?"

Hell if I knew.

I think his favorite thing is listening to some music through a pair of Beats. "Eminem," he says loud like he's under a hair dryer or something. We're there a while.

So once we're in the house I head up and ask him to wait for the guys to come for their checks. They do that before they go out. It's Friday night and ten o'clock things are just starting to happen. Or so they tell me.

Riley comes in and he spends time talking with Edward. Artie's next and he comes up and talks to me. Jasper is ignoring his calls. Like me he figures my brother is on his crazy way to Michigan to talk Alice into coming back. Artie says they can get back in the plant by Wednesday and he needs Jasper to go. Of course he does.

"It will happen," I say. "But if it doesn't…I'll call Jacob or Mike."

I'd better look up some daycares or something. I bought that pack of bologna at the store. I kind of knew then. I always know right off when something's coming my way.

So after they're gone Edward comes upstairs.

I'm in my room, so sore I can't use those crutches anymore. I'm watching Hannibal on my laptop, but not really. I'm just staring, my mind so full nothing comes through much.

He knocks on my door. It's not closed tight, just pulled and the dog pushes in first. "Bella, want me to look at your foot?"

He's still holding an envelope. I already know it's Jasper's. Without Alice, he won't do anything regular now. I hold out my hand and he puts the check there. "He's probably followed her home," I say.

"Where's her home?"

"She's from Michigan."

"Shit. You think he went there?"

"Maybe. She goes home sometimes when she needs a break." But this is more than that.

"He's got to be back. His kid is coming Monday, right?"

"Yeah," I say. His kid is coming on Monday.

"You don't ride his ass no more?"

"Alice mostly. Artie's good with him. I pair those two. Me and Riley…," I say.

"Now me," he says. "Riley asked me to hit some spots with him."

"He don't know the curfew," I say. "He should after Jasper being inside, but…."

"Riley been with you that long?"

"Yeah."

"He asked me if I lived here. I said you're just helping me out."

"Not his business," I say.

"Yeah but…someone asks you say, right? And he don't know me. I think he's worried for you. I guess it looks…he asked me if I'm on the up."

I pause my show and sit up on the bed. "Are you? On the up?"

He takes me seriously. "You think I'm not? B, you gave me the room up here. You don't trust me, what the fuck?"

He goes in the bathroom to get the pads and gauze we bought tonight. He's got the scissors too.

"I'm gonna sit on your bed," he says, then he does and I scoot and get my foot on his thigh.

He nudges the dog away all crabby and unwraps the Ace bandage.

"I'm saying if you're on the up, don't…slink."

He looks at me and furrows his brow. Then he smiles and I feel like a jerk.

"You wish you could go with Riley?" I say.

He looks a minute. "We're all right here," he says.

"You wish you could?" I repeat.

He's done with the bandage. He bends closer to unwrap the gauze. "No."

"All this time, you don't want to go out? Get another welcome home…something?"

He laughs some now. "She grabbed my shirt and practically pulled me over the bar."

"Poor you."

"She did," he insists. "She said I was hungry and I said I'd been away and she said she thought so and she grabbed me and laid it on me."

"Uh-huh."

"B," he flushes red and he's laughing. "I ain't kidding on this."

"Hope you enjoyed it," I say.

"It wasn't bad," he laughs. "But she tasted like catsup."

"What?" Now I'm laughing a little.

"Like catsup," he says again, big grin.

"You're crazy," I say.

"I was in a daze B. I don't think I'm out of it yet. That wasn't a kiss, it was assault." He gently pulls away the pads from the wound. He's looking at the cut.

"A daze? She kiss that good?"

He laughs. "Not from that." He puts some more ointment on it. In no time he's wrapping it back up.

When he's finished he asks what I'm doing and I explain about watching television on my laptop.

"A whole season and not even a CD?" he says.

I explain streaming. "What's it about?" he says meaning my show.

I try and explain Hannibal. He's seen Silence of the Lambs so he knows.

Somehow he's next to me in the bed and we're watching episode one.


	20. Chapter 20

My Ex-con 20

It is so warm. I burrow the side of my face deeper into my pillow and my mind starts to hum. It is Saturday and with my foot and the bad weather that hit last night, I plan to slum it today, and I give myself permission to sink deeper into the covers and be a lazy slug.

Then a wet nose pokes me right in the kisser and I open my eyes and the pit bull is in my face.

The bed shakes as someone behind me moves, and his deep morning voice, "Oh shit, you need to go out don't you?" is real close to my ear.

He says no more than that and he's up, and I don't want to deal with this, with him…here.

He's around me and hurrying to get the dog out and for the briefest flicker we look at one another, and he's all sleepy eyes and his beard has grown enough it has deep color and that with the brows and the tiny bit of growth from his hair, well it's a lot of rich brown is all, and he smiles at me, it's that melty smile too, even softer from sleep, and he's tall, I never get used to how tall, and he's here, all the movement and noise, then he's out and the dog is noisy following him down and I'm the one having a Walmart moment, right here in my bedroom.

I'm flipping through my mind now, like an old index file, what, what, what? We watched four of those episodes, and then he got to telling me about prison and I paused it, because the dead bodies on the show, the blood and guts, it got him thinking, and he told me again about those two guys killed right in front of him, then I don't know what happened. I fell asleep, of course. I guess an ex-con and his gruesome stories on the heels of a show about a serial killer, I guess that's practically a lullaby in my kingdom.

The downstairs door closes and it's quiet. I hear a hoot from outside. I hope he didn't fall because we had that ice.

I've slept well. And deep. I'm too lazy to look out the window. I roll onto my back, my hand flops overhead and crunches a wrapper. Oh shit. I grab the package and bring it in front of my face and yes, I let him get the Double-stuffed Oreos and bring them into the bed. Do I have a mind?

Then I search and feel his spot and it's still warm. I take the pillow and hold it to my face, yeah, it's traced with him. He has this great…I don't know…smell. It's just warm skin or something, but masculine. It smells the way he looks. Why am I doing this?

I've been alone…a long time. There have been no lovers, so-called. I know I'm not so bad to look at, not if I try to fix up a little, and head gear doesn't bother you, but I don't give the vibes they are looking for. And when one of them has the nerve to approach me, there's something…like hate? It just rises in me.

I don't hate men. I work with men all the time. I just hate the idea that someone would approach me wanting me for sex—putting the moves on me. They all want to start with sex and it shuts me down.

I don't know why it's different with Edward. I don't know why I give him permission to take another step, then another. Maybe I'm just shallow. Maybe it's his looks. But looks don't inspire me to be different. He seems to offer me something more, he doesn't run away. I always knew the one who got in would have to have courage…and stamina…and be strong enough to take my shit and keep trying, like rubbing the grit off a window, peering through, determined to see the view, determined.

I feel with my good foot. The laptop is at the bottom of the bed. My hearing aids are still in which is a frustrating waste of battery power. No wonder his voice painted my brain. He spoke right into my back speakers. But his breathing, maybe his snoring, obviously didn't wake me.

And…my glasses are folded neatly on the nightstand. I was wearing those. That means that someone took care of me. Someone made a conscious decision to stay in this bed when he knew he shouldn't.

I'm not angry. But it is a big deal. No one else has ever slept here but me and I've owned this place for three years now.

I bought it from Mr. Carson. He lived on the other side of the street, a couple of houses up. That house sits empty now. Soon his daughter will have it cleaned out and put up for sale.

I've inherited something, but I don't yet know what it is. There's a meeting on Tuesday. Whatever it is, I'll treasure it.

When he retired, I took over his customers. He taught me what it means to have a father. When he had the strokes and needed in-home care, I was at his house more than my own. When he spent those last two weeks in the nursing home, I was there, too. I know I'm grieving, but not like I thought. I think I've been grieving a long time already.

Part of me knows Edward couldn't have arrived at a better time. On one hand he's been a great distraction. On the other, I'm probably softer than usual. At any rate, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

But I'm trying to look like I do.


	21. Chapter 21

My Ex-con 21

I smell that bacon frying when I come out of the bathroom. He's already been. After his romp with the dog and telling me though my door the whole street is a skating rink he did his thing in here, got it all steamy but didn't leave any of his shaving crap on the sink or anything. Now he's downstairs cooking.

He jars me, continually jars me. If I'm not downstairs cooking, no one is cooking. See it's like that. But not now.

So he's down there and there's music. Too loud, but it's straight up radio and I'd forgotten about the old reliable station we listened to back in the day.

So I put on some soft pants and a t-shirt, a hoodie over that and socks and my hair is stuck up in some okay deal, just out of the way. I don't even cover my hearing aids because he's seen them enough, and my stick out ears.

So I work my way down the stairs and the dog wags around at the bottom.

I get to the kitchen and his back is to me and he's cooking. He's not wearing a shirt. He's wearing the sweatpants a little low. Okay, this is definitely too far.

God he's beautiful.

I stump my way to the table. He seems to realize I'm there. Maybe with the blaring radio he didn't hear me. "Hey," he says. He's happy. He throws a dishtowel over his shoulder. His naked shoulder. "What's the matter? Too loud?" he means the radio.

I'm embarrassed and I don't know what to say so I come off bitchy and his smile drops a little. But he's nicked and dinged and that long scar along his ribs. And he's flesh and blood and…fuck him he thinks it's nothing. He thinks he can do this to me and say, 'what's wrong?'

I pull out a chair and he's getting me a cup of coffee. So he's figured out the Keurig too. "That creamer shit, right?"

I almost laugh. Almost. Who says creamer shit with a straight face?

"What?" he says, smile hopeful again.


	22. Chapter 22

Listen to Angus and Julia Stone – Draw Your Swords

And thank you readers.

My Ex-con 22

I am filled and I'm cleaning up. He's downstairs doing laundry. Mine and his. I admit, the basement stairs are a bitch for me. I went up and put all my shit in a basket. I didn't give him my dirty underwear. I just can't. It's like…violation.

I put them in my closet to be hand-washed later.

So I've explained the laundry. He's adamant he can do this. He pulled a couple weeks in the prison laundry and he did his own before that. That doesn't help me relax at all. I do my stuff slow and I get it right.

I don't want to shoot him down. He said that thing about taking care of someone…he's cleaned my glasses. He's taken a wadded up rag and wiped that dog shiny.

I get it. I see. He's stacked wood on the front porch and that was effing ambitious. And all that before I got my ass out of bed.

So yeah, I'm wiping over the stove and sighing and he comes upstairs, and I plan to make chili and we talk about that and he says he'll chop the onions, so I get out the slow cooker and we put the things in there, layer it all in, and I turn the pot on high.

We end up in front of the fire. I pull the cushions off the couch and throw them on the floor. I do this all the time. He wants to see pictures and I have so few from when we're young, just a few I've gotten hook or crook, but none of him, for the two years he swirled around me before he went away. But I've taken some since, and I have an album now, and we go through slow and laugh at Jasper and I introduce Edward to Mr. Carson and tell him some of how my business grew.

"The old pervert?" he says.

So he heard that.

"Jasper," I say.

And I talk to him about the porch and he gets the tablet out of my office and I show him what I have planned, and he sketches in a couple of ideas.

We play hang-man and talk about music, what's on the radio. I'm almost angry over the state of popular music and I think it reflects how lost we are, how purposeless.

So we talk that way, and I get my laptop and play some of the music I've discovered for him.

We lay there like that and he scratches the dog and we listen.

We eat chili and play Uno, and watch Hannibal and eat more chili. Then we eat icecream, and watch more Hannibal, and I fall asleep, and so does he because I wake up first, and it's the dog again and he takes it out.

I have bookwork, and I do that in front of the fire, and he teaches The Bull, nicknamed Bull, to sit and to lay. Bull smiles and sneezes too, and Edward has me laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. I say, "How am I supposed to get anything done?"

He brings the laundry up and folds it, terribly, but good enough, I'm redoing mine later. He puts it all together in the basket. We're all caught up now.

He rewraps my foot, then tells me my skin is dry and I say it's winter. He asks if I have lotion.

I say why.

"I could rub some on you," he says.

We stare at one another there before the fire.

"I don't think so," I say.

"Okay."

"I mean…where could that go?"

"I know where it could go," he laughs.

I laugh a little too. But not really. "No thanks."

"Bella, I ah, I appreciate everything."

"You don't have to keep saying it. I know."

"No…B…you don't."

My chin lifts. I'm rubbing a piece of my hair over my closed mouth.

"I ah," he says, sitting there, elbows on his knees, poker in his hand as he stabs at the biggest log in the fire, "…you're my family."

I'm watching that log he pokes at.

"Yeah. We don't want to ruin it," I say, but I'm pretty sure you don't offer to rub lotion on your sister.

"What would ruin it?" he says. His voice has dropped, it's deeper, and his eyes, he better watch it.

"Well…everything can get ruined. Talking like this…."

"This ruin it?" he asks, taking one of the smokes out of his pack. He wears a t-shirt now at least, his back bowed as he lights it.

"Smoking in my house without asking," I say.

He grins at me with that thing stuck in the side of his mouth. He takes it between his fingers, "It's going right up the chimney," he says as he blows that smoke, still smiling. "You and me…." He shrugs, takes another drag, doesn't look away.

"Shut-up," I say.

"You think of me…while I was in there?"

I stare. He's fucking it up right now. And I was just starting to relax.

"What are you doing?" I say.

"Talking about it," he says.

"Ruining it."

"Why? I gotta be some kind of eunuch?"

"You invited yourself into my bed. You think it's going to happen again?"

He shrugs again, takes a deep drag and stares into the fire now.

"You want me B?" He looks at me, then back at the fire.

I don't answer. He pitches that smoke into the fire. He rubs his hands up and down his thighs. Then he turns to me. "Let me hold you."

I am looking at him, I can't stop. I hate him. I hate this. Ruined.

"Let me hold you B," he says quietly.

I feel tears. I'm angry and I feel betrayed.

"B."

"Why?"

"It's all I have to give."

"It's…charity."

"No," he says. "I'm the charity case, not you. Let me hold you, B."

Tears. "You're all alike. You want that. And it's never enough."

"B, I want it. Hell yes I want it. But I'll wait. Hear me? I'll wait. Just…let me hold you."

"It's convenient," I say. "You're outside now, and here I am. Get close enough to a girl you have to fuck her, right? Even if she is family."

"That what you think B?" He's getting pissed now.

Looking at him, the way he doesn't let me go with those eyes, he's good.

"I'm going to bed," I say, struggling to get on my foot.

He helps me up, and once we're standing his hands are on my waist. "B," he says, then he pulls me in until I'm against him. His hand slides up my back and he slowly tucks my head against his chest. The thud of his heart pounds into my temple. I close my eyes.

"B," he says softly, "put your arms around me. Please. Please touch me B."

I swallow. Slowly I pull my arms free from where they are crossed between us. I move them around his back and clasp my hands there.

His arms close around me and his hands are open against my back. I'm embarrassed to think how he must feel my heart beat so quickly.

"I'm not a whore," I blurt. Stupidly.

"I know," he says. "I know B."

"I…I didn't mean you. I meant…."

I feel such emotion climbing up my throat. He's holding me. He's holding me.

My hands twitch against his back, and I feel him, move my hands and feel him. "I'm sorry," I blurt as everything rushes out. "I'm sorry."

I know I go limp, and he slowly moves us back to the floor, easing me down. I didn't plan this, not anything, but I'm holding onto him and we're lying on the pillows, and he's holding me there. "It's all right," he says.

I know I have to get up, tell him no, tell him we can't. I can't. I'll lose him now. I know I will. He ruined it.

But he's holding me, and I remember he asked me to touch him. He wants that, he hungers for it, even before, I felt his longing. It scared me, how strongly he wanted it, wanted me.

And this, it's raw and open and I'm not a real woman. There's something so wrong with me. But he's here, in my arms, my arms so tight around him, so tight I can't get close enough.

"B," he breathes into my neck. "B, my God."

I swallow then. I press my face against his shirt. Edward. My Edward.

The only one.


	23. Chapter 23

My Ex-con 23

"Kiss," he whispers to me.

I lift my head and look from his eyes to his lips. "Edward," I say because….

"Kiss," he says again drawing out the 's', staring at my mouth, his hand on my cheek.

The feel of his lips against mine, so gentle, so warm, soft.

"I…," I'm saying as he draws back a little.

He comes in again, easy. My lips move against his and he pulls back again.

"Do you…do you know me?" I say.

"I know you," he says and this time, the kiss is longer and a little wetter, and his taste draws me in, it's awareness and suspension. I'm floating.

"There's been no one," I say, I pant, I cry.

"I know," he says and his mouth is on mine, and I've opened to him, and his tongue penetrates, briefly, then again, and I am pressed against him, and his arms tighten.

"Just…just you," I say.


	24. Chapter 24

My Ex-Con 24

Needles of ice against the window panes. The crackle and drop from the fire, our hearts beating center of the house, we lie on the cushions, me on my back, him half over me.

Being afraid is my habit, but it's not there now, and the habit is a white space needing filled so I say the right-wrong words, "I don't know."

"Yeah?" he says, and there's soft in his voice. He smiles, back of his hand on my cheek. His eyes, sex—sexy, gentle, slow looks at my mouth, my breasts.

He wants.

He swallows. I swallow.

"It's me," he says, and his fingers lightly touch my lips, "Bella," he says, fingers touching down my neck, his finger circling my heart. A kiss on my breast, his face there, his mouth open, biting gently and lifting with my shirt clenched in his teeth and he lets that go, and he smiles at the wet stain he's made there.

Slow brush of his knuckles, down my body, rub back and forth across my stomach, lower, and the heel of his hand over my pelvic bone and he presses there and I lift my hips enough to push back.

My eyes roll up in my head and I close my eyes so he won't know as his long fingers thread between my legs.

"Oh," he seems to say, or just the long h.

His forehead slowly drops to my shoulder and I cup the back of his head.

"Do you want me B?" he says against me like that. Then, face lifts and his eyes. "Do you want me?"

"What…do you want?"

"Your sex, this," he says his fingers against me. "Your body. I want it all night…maybe all day tomorrow. I want it everyday next week…and the week after that," he says. "I'm a man let out of a cage. And everything I want to do, I've done…in my mind…for days, for years I've gone over in my mind. And I got in your car and you were real, you're real and warm…you're hot and horny and damp and ready baby and waiting, waiting for me, B. And I want it."


	25. Chapter 25

My Ex-con 25

He kisses me carefully, chastely, and he gets up then. He offers me his hand. I don't take it, but stay where I am. He tells me he's taking the dog out. "Then I'm going up B. I said it now."

Yes. A speech. He made a speech. He listened to me, I listened to him.

He looks at me a minute and he gets the dog and out they go.

I sit up. I knew he'd push and he knows I need him to. He's thought of me, made love to me, in his mind, in his cage…years.

I can't say how it's been for me. Everytime I touched myself, he came to me and I said no. I tried to change his face to another's, but it's a strong face, and he'd come to me again and again, and even if I'd make him another when I came, finally, my body always holding back, but when I came…it was him. And I shut down. It hurt too much.

Some kind of hold he's got on me. Now I feel like I'm in it, like I let him touch me, kiss me, and now I'm in his cage and I feel the walls, the place where he's wanted me and it's responsibility and I'm blind in here. The door has closed behind me. And I'm not wanting to leave. As long as he's here…I'll stay.

I struggle to get up. I hobble from couch to chair to wall to stair. Up I go. Up to a place with a door.

His place. The place I gave him. The place I will give him.

Love is a cross. In my mind I lie down and stretch my arms, cross my ankles.

I wait for the nails in his hand.

I sit on his bed.

He comes in and I feel the hesitation as he views the cushions on the floor and sees I'm not there.

He walks through the house and I know he locks doors and shuts off lights. He is slow on the stairs, the dog passing him to enter first, touch its nose to my leg. But still, Edward checks in my room first before he comes to his…to me.

I'm tempted to feel like a fool. But it passes when he comes in the room and sees me there and pulls his shirt off, beauty, scarred, marred man.

He pulls down his pants. "Undress B," he says, his eyes, no guarded thing now.

His pants hit the floor. He pulls down his underwear, kicks them aside. "B."

I take off my shirt. I reach behind and undo the bra, take shirt and bra and throw them on floor. I stand ungracefully, weight on one foot, and my pants go down. Then my underwear. I sit, kick aside, stand again.

He looks. He looks. He takes a step, drops to his knees, hands on my ass, rough cheek against my stomach. "B."

He's kissing me there, and it's over. I'm with him, for him. His mouth is there and he's lifted the leg with the injured foot, he holds it up, out of the way, and I hold his face…to me.


	26. Chapter 26

My Ex-con 26

He pulls back from me, one swift move and he has me on the bed, on my back, he takes me like I weigh nothing and moves me further across the bed and he kneels between my spread legs, looks there, I mean there, and he says, "This will be quick." He grins. "I'll make it up…"

He's closer, he gives me a hungry kiss and he's pushing into me, and his face is so close and he's looking at me and he's there, all the way there inside and God it's…something.

My fingers dig into his skin. He was beyond me for so…so long. I didn't know if he lived one day to the next. I couldn't go to him, couldn't touch him if I did. But now…damn, damn, damn.

"B." For a minute it's just that. He's drawing it out, being inside, looking at me, letting me know.

"You're so wet doll, you're…shit." He moves a little and deep sounds in his throat and I kiss his neck. "B," he's saying deep in there.

The dog is on alert, standing there, face edge of the bed, and I laugh, but not really, I arch as high as I can with him there on his elbows over me. It only takes him seconds and he can't hold back. He pumps a couple of times and he's gone.

It's quiet and I hold onto his arms while he rides it out, I hold tightly as I can.

"Mother, fuck," he collapses on me, rolls us over and he's kissing me, I can't breathe, then he's kissing me under my ear, shoulder, back to my mouth and I still can't breathe. He slips out of me and his hand is there and his fingers are moving over me, inside me, playing my chords, my notes, inside I'm singing….

"B."

I come and come and come, I am a raisin woman dropped in hot boiling water I am expanding, coming alive even as I die, die, die. I'm so alive.

"Edward," I pant. What had I put in this place? How?

I'm flipped over and his hands are everywhere. He pulls me up so I'm on my knees and he's back there.

"Edward," I scream, turned on and horrified cause he just licked the back door.

"Sweet," he says, I think he does, and I have my forehead on my folded arms and I'm groaning and I sway a little as he moves around, then he's under me and he lowers me onto his face and I'm so sensitive and it's happening again…an aria.

"Edward," kind of strong, then "Edward," really weak.

"That's my name," he says thready and I'm moving again, on my back once more and he's in again, he's ready again and he's hard and pumping, and he gets a hand under me and he's lifting my ass off the bed, and it's furious, it's…it's perfect. Then one big grunt and he's there.

When it's over this time, he collapses beside me, he's laughing some. "Sorry," he says, big smile, ten years younger in his face, soft and his eyes have this deep light.

It gets pretty quiet. He's looking at me. "I love you, B."

I am a sprawl of a girl now, my hair all over, my legs thrown open and raggedy.

"What?" I say. "You haven't been with a woman in eight years. Of course you love me."

He rolls on his side and runs his hand over me.

My hand is on his arm. I watch my hand on him.

He quickly rolls onto his back, pulling me over him like a blanket. "Damn B. I'm fuck-happy."

"Happy as fuck?" I say lazy.

"Happy fucking you."

I have to laugh a little. I look at him and he lifts his head and kisses my smile.

"You waited," he says. "I'd ask Jasper, B take up with anyone?"

I'm still. It's complicated.

He's touching my face. "You waited, B."


	27. Chapter 27

My Ex-con 27

Is it wrong that we finish Hannibal between our sessions? Probably. Not. We can do what we want, but neither of us ever does, me by choice, him by circumstance. Hell it's wild times, and sometimes we settle down, we sleep. We're on this weird clock and I know I'll pay come Monday morning, but all my life the voice of reason has read me the riot act from deep inside, and now something more powerful and louder and crazier than crazy is shouting.

Right now we're standing in the basement. The dog is sniffing out the corners. Edward is naked and I'm wearing underwear at least, and a towel around my shoulders. "Yeah twelve inch centers and they look hand-hewn," he's saying as the beam from the flashlight he holds moves over the impressive carpentry that is my basement ceiling.

"That's what I mean," I say excitedly. I've been dying to show someone who cares about such things. My house is fierce. We've already been in the attic. I want to create a studio up there where I can practice new paint techniques.

"Yeah some of the old buildings in the city, as a kid, those buildings are so well made…." He says, and there it is. Him asleep in the basement of some old building. He'd be fifteen, sixteen, on his own.

There's nowhere he won't go, and I wonder how such a free-wheeling gypsy as him ever kept his sanity in a cage.

Guilt hits me again. It's an old burden where he's concerned. I know the argument, I know, he chose to be reckless, he chose to assault James Mason, he was in on the gun thing, by association, he was part of the crime. It was a crushing punishment and he was screwed.

But I had no leverage when he told me how—I couldn't visit, he wouldn't call. He never said to wait. He went in…away…he disappeared from my life.

He said he asked Jasper…about me. But Jasper never said. He wouldn't. Would it have made a difference?

"B?" Edward says, the light glancing over my face.

I shake my head and it's not hard. "I'm freezing," I say. He puts his back to me, bends his knees and I get on. Then he carries me up the stairs. That's how we went in the attic, that's how we're traveling now.

In the kitchen we fill a bag with food and a couple of bottles of water and head back upstairs with Bull leading and waiting on the second floor. On the way up, I lay my cheek against Edward's shoulder and tighten my arms around him. On the landing he sets me down and turns around and picks me up so he can hold me facing him. I still have the bag of food and it bounces against his back as he takes the last four stairs, laughing and kissing me at the same time. He carries me to the bed that way, mine this time. Then he pulls back the drapes and we watch the snow powder down and we eat pb&j, and I'm in my underwear, and he's still naked, "Nearly naked picnic," I say and that's when he puts the jelly on my nipple.

And after he's experimented with licking things off of me, he says, "Think he'll make it back?" and I know he means my brother.

It's three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. They are bringing his child tomorrow. We both know it's possible he won't make it back. We both know.


	28. Chapter 28

My Ex-con 28

"Stretch out," I'm saying while I root for that minty lotion in my nightstand drawer.

He obediently stretches out on the quilt we've put on my bedroom floor. We're in front of the windows and they dip pretty low. We've been watching the snow from this view and talking about food.

"Lasagna B."

"Yeah," I say still rooting.

"And stew like with real beef," he says.

"As opposed to fake beef?"

"And a hamburger grilled like thick and pink inside with those thick fries," he says.

"All right. That's enough for the next month," I say. "It's massage time."

So I find the lotion. I'm wearing one of his new t-shirts now and it's big. He's still bare and stretched like this it's a constant shock to see him here, but I don't say. These are still the old windows and it's drafty as hell but he says he runs hot. So I get back to him with the lotion and careful of my foot I straddle his stomach and he has his hands under his head and he's looking at me with his eyes more closed than open. I put a glob of lotion on my palm and set the tube on the floor as I rub it in my hands to get it kind of warm.

Then I smooth over his chest with two hands. I intend to take a better look at some of these marks. "Now what's this from?" I say concerning this one on his right pectoral.

He doesn't even look where I'm rubbing. "Joke gone bad," he says still watching me.

"What joke?" I'm rubbing. He doesn't seem inclined to explain more, but he moves his hands to my waist.

"This big one on your ribs?" I say.

"Same joke," he says low, his hands moving to the end of the shirt on my thighs and sneaking under the hem to slide higher. He puts his thumbs in the creases at the top of my legs and his long fingers cup my ass.

I stop altogether. "This one was deep Edward." It's also long.

"Some jack-ass," he says, then he squeezes my ass. I yelp a little and move and he seizes the momentum of that and moves me back enough he's hard underneath me and I keep moving back and I grab that lotion again and put it straight on him, mustard on sausage, and I get off one of his legs and he widens and I rub him there too, and he likes it so much and it's wicked to bring him so much pleasure.

"Bella," he says almost like he's crying, and I bring him to the end and he lets loose from his eight year holding tank as he calls it and the spermazola flies.

A couple lines of tears are shining in his heavy shadow. He swipes at those.

"You okay?" I say.

He smiles…beautiful. "Yeah B. I'm great."

That's happened a couple of times—tears getting free.

I get back with a towel and wipe him off, and I grab another cover off the bed and put that over us as we lay there on the floor. I can't be cold with my body against his.

I should finish the massage, but it's too perfect like this, lying on his arm curled against him.

"You never show weakness in there," he says softly. "You protect everything. You get singled out, you fight. And you never call out for help. I told you before, sometimes it was my turn. You fight…they respect that. You inflict as much damage as you can before you can't. That's all it is," he says stroking my arm.

All it is? "It…hurts me…to think of it. It…hurts me," I say, knowing my tears show now.

"Hey," he says wiping at my face with his fingers. He rubs his fingers together slowly. "This right here," he says meaning the damp, "you B…I had something to live for…you know?"

"But…I didn't wait. I gave up. I thought…."

He lets me cry it out some. He pulls me up and kisses me and wipes some more at my wet face. "Wait a minute."

He puts me aside and gets out of the cover and goes in his room and Bully is all excited thinking he's going outside.

He messes around in his room and he's back, holding my worn, creased ragged edged picture in his hand. "Look there," he says. "They'd toss my room and I'd keep my eye on this. They could do whatever to all the rest, but not this. First thing I picked up when I got back in my cell was you."

He's beside me again and I take the picture from him.

"You're inside, time is like…you're a passenger on one long bus filled with assholes and the driver doesn't even have his foot on the gas. Everything is rushing past but you don't know where they're going and you know you're not going anywhere.

"What I mean B…I'm done wasting time. I wasn't home until I got in that car…with you."

I hold that picture and look at that girl. She is not particularly inspiring unless you know what she's meant…to him.

"You're making me love you all over again," I whisper.

"Say it plain," he tells me, hand on the back of my neck, leaning toward me and I couldn't make a vow before witnesses that would feel more weighty than this, "I love you Edward. Even when I wasn't waiting…I couldn't stop loving you."


	29. Chapter 29

Thank you reviewers.

My Ex-con 29

Monday morning I call the plant where Artie and Jasper have been working in Kansas City and they will be ready to go by Tuesday. Our equipment did not test out for traces of the offending chemicals so they are releasing it back to us and we can carry on.

That's a relief.

I text Jasper for the millionth time. "You need to call me or I'm replacing you in Kansas City."

My gut tells me he's with Alice. Otherwise he'd be burning up my phone. He has a kid and he's coming today. I can't fix that. I won't. I don't. I can't. I shant.

I distract myself by acknowledging that I have a love-fest hangover. I am sore between my legs and fuzzy in my head. In some ways I've been on hyper-alert. For years? Now I'm muddled, nearly out of it, and I have business to attend to.

Preparing for work we're like an old married couple and it's weird and right. Edward makes us coffee and fried egg sandwiches, and I check through the truck seeing if we're ready to end the job we're on today and move to the next. As I do the simplest task there's a more important truth clamoring to be heard.

I'm in love.

I am loved.

Love.

I shake my head.

Edward and I arrive at the job site and I'm hoping to finish today as the homeowner went over everything over the weekend to make sure she's pleased. Edward and Riley are finishing up in the kitchen and I'm doing rounds with the lady of the house. Like me, she seems to feel Edward's presence, seems to have an eye for about every move he makes.

Unlike me…well we're nothing alike.

So by noon we're packing up the last of our tools and Lady comes down the driveway and I'm getting in my side of the van and he's stopped by her and she's saying something and it's a quick exchange, and he opens the door and he's in smooth and I see the card in his hand.

"She did not," I say to him.

He tears up the card.

He's got color in his face, more than usual and he looks like she'd caught him stealing or something.

"Fucker," I say and I don't know if I mean him or her.

"Don't worry B, I couldn't get it up for her if my life depended on it," he leans in and kisses me then. I make him work for it cause fuck him. "I'm empty," he whispers. And I have to smile a little cause he'd told me last night I'd even drained the holding tank.

"You are so full of shit," I say to him, my lips feeling a tingle from being touched by his.

As I'm pulling off I say, "What did she say?"

"She said to call her sometime," he says, pulling my pristine ashtray and putting the shreds of her card in there.

"Well I have her number if you need it," I say.

He's lighting a smoke. "Hey B," he says more serious now.

"What?" I say not looking at him. This is how it is with him. Women gravitate. This look he's got going on now? Older muscle and lean, that hair coming in like velvet and those eyes, the brows the lashes, and the angles of his face, lips, and you know he's bad…shit. Nothing but trouble, this man.

"It's funny, B. That's all."

"If it was reversed I wouldn't think so," I say.

"You have that happen on a job?"

"Seriously? I've had more harassment getting going in this. Our suppliers, other painters, and once or twice the client, especially if it's industrial."

"Fuck that," he says puffing away.

We're in a weird place. I love you means just you. "It's fast, what's happened," I say. I mean him and me.

He's looking at me while he smokes. I can tell he doesn't like what I'm saying. "How's that?"

I shrug. "Maybe too fast."

"What's this shit B?"

"I'm just saying…you just got out. You could…emotionally you might mistake what you…." I need to say, 'feel,' but it's more than I can say for some reason.

His hand is on my arm, my leg. "You come off this weekend up there with me B or I miss something?" he says.

"It is soon."

"Best weekend of my life. How about you?"

"Yeah. Best weekend," I admit.

"I thought you and me got somewhere."

I nod. "Yeah."

"Lasted what…less than twenty-four hours for you?" he says.

"No," I say.

"I ain't the putz I was B. You know that, right?"

I shrug. "I know." But people don't usually come out of prison…better. He said something about that, wisdom was hard-won in there, the good kind. He said that.

"Yeah, you know what I'd of done back in the day?" he says.

"You want me to know?"

"I'd of taken her up on it, left the downstairs door open for Jasper and he'd be stealing her blind. I'd have the cash and credit cards out of her expensive wallet, most of her jewelry and some of her old man's and we'd be ripping off cars parked along her street before she had time to wash me off."

"Don't…."

"That's who I was, B."

I look at him. "You really know how to make yourself irresistible."

"Just don't be confused," he says. "I went inside and you beat yourself up with fair and whatever, let me tell you, my number came up and I paid the piper. That's all."

Riley is up ahead, moving to the new site on the other side of town, a four-family flat.

"You mean you deserved it?" I say.

He shrugs. "You play, you pay."

Riley turns off at Biggie's. They have the best sandwiches.

I'm telling Edward what to order before we park, but I say it like a robot. I'd been so eager to bring him here, they've got a pulled pork to die for, but now I couldn't care less.

He finishes his smoke and flicks it out the window. "What's the matter?" he asks.

"Nothing. Go on and get the food," I say digging forty out of my purse. "Get Riley's."

"B," he says, "what's up?"

"Nothing," I say. "Go get in line."

He is looking at me and I smile weakly. He clicks his tongue, but he moves out and meets Riley at the doors of the place and one last look at me he's in.

But thing is, I feel it, how he was then, the pull of him, and the way he'd look at me, getting in my bed, grinning, smiling, looking at me like I was the queen, the expensive gifts and the food and money. He always took care of me and I hated it, stolen stuff, but I was used to it, too.

He worked with me, here and there, he'd do fine work and I'd see he could be more. But I knew he was trouble, such trouble…trouble. Trouble.

He persistently wormed his way so far in.

I started to relax. We talked. He touched. He'd take my hand. He'd sleep with his lips against my knuckles or holding my hand to his cheek and I'd watch him...for hours.

Jasper had girls, a couple, on again, off again, but when it was on with one he'd be gone more and more, and he wasn't so careful about me, and C moved right in, but he treaded light with me. He needed someone to believe in.

And I wanted it to be me. I did. So I played angel, and it felt so good when I knew I wasn't good. But Mr. Carson had showed me a way and I kept on it. It took years for me to believe in myself. It took real effort.

After Edward went to prison, after he didn't call or write, I got rid of every stolen thing he ever gave me. I tried to purge him out of my house, my soul, and my brain.

But here's what's trying to settle in me now-revelation time. If Edward hadn't of gone to prison, we had no chance.

Prison was our gift.

Is that what he was saying? He played. He paid. Is that the self-respect I see now?

I'm floating on these ideas when he and Riley finally come out, their arms loaded with food. They're laughing. Riley holds his soda toward me and I nod.

I lean hard and get the door for Edward and take the drinks. He climbs in and that smokehouse smell fills the van.

"That bitch was two-timing me," he says laughing.

"What bitch?" I say like this is some everyday remark.

"She gave Riley a card too, same pitch. Here I thought I was something special, you know?" He's laughing.

"He knows better than to call her, right?" He should. I've lectured him enough. "She's a customer," I say.

"Yeah B. He knows you're not having that," he says handing me my wrapped sandwich.

He groans and oohs over the food, and he's digging in deep. I look at him and he's smiling, his lips are greasy and he comes in close with his bar-be-que breath and says, "Hey," wanting me to lay one on him.

"Get out of here," I laugh, turning my head, then making sure Riley can't see.

He's laughing and he goes back to attacking that sandwich. "Fuck, B. This is unreal."

"Don't talk with your mouth full," I say taking a huge bite of mine. I'm chewing with a full load when I say, "Didn't your mother teach you anything?"

He looks at me, his cheeks bulging like mine. He just has to laugh on that one. We told those stories in our past lives. Some of them. I knew he got hit. Boyfriends, they're the worst. Yeah, Edward's mother taught him plenty.

111111111111

"Edward," I yell.

"What?" he yells back.

"Fuck's sake," I say.

"Yeah, fuck," he says in fuck-speak.

"I thought driving was like swimming," I say.

"It's been eight years, B. This van is like a Conestoga wagon."

"Whatever that is," I say as he over-exaggerates a left turn. I have my arms braced along my seat and the side-window.

"Relax…," he almost says 'relax B,' but we hit a slick patch and weave some and he over-corrects and I yell again and he corrects it, but we're both doing f-speak again.

"Get off my ass," he yells.

"Pull it over as soon as you can," I say, no faith in him at all.

He ignores me, and continues on the residential street that the city has neglected to scrape apparently. But I didn't expect him to make that left off the main drag, I didn't expect him to drive like he's from Mars.

"I got this," he's saying, staring ahead like we're riding the edge of a cliff.

Up ahead is a cul de sac. I take a deep breath finally. He gets there and old-mans it around the key. He's preparing to retake that road that just about gave me a heart attack. "Hey no," I say. "Pull over."

"Fuck that," he says. "Get in my pocket and light me a smoke."

"No way. You're not multi-tasking," I say. "Pull over."

But of course he ignores me, and I can't strong-arm him. I'm afraid to distract him in anyway. We were coming home from the site when I got this bright idea he should try driving again. He actually said no. It was slick and the sun was down and he didn't want to take a chance with my van and not having a license. He's practically Mr. Carson he's so wise. But now, he's Edward again, hands on the wheel, fuck me, no one can tell him what to do.

So I'm braced and holding my breath, and he's picking his way down this road.

When we get to the main drag he doesn't pull out, he pulls over. "It's coming back," he says proudly. "Why you looking at me like that for?"

I'm shaking my head. "You're so stubborn."

"B, I said I changed. I changed in there. I decided, you know? That don't mean I got perfect. You're the angel in this thing."

I hate how vulnerable I've become. My God, a couple of sentences and I don't know anything. "I realized something, Edward. Maybe this…break we've…I don't know…suffered through…maybe it's why we've got a chance. That angel stuff? It worked back in the day. I needed it. But…I don't need it now. We both know I'm not perfect. I'm far from it. I have to be able to…disappoint you."

He laughs, hand over his mouth as he looks out the window.

I continue, "Without prison…that break…where we really couldn't get to each other…we didn't have a chance."

He looks at me. "The only thing that was going to keep me away from you was prison," he says.

"Yeah. Yes. I know that. The same for me. But…we would have destroyed each other," I say, "two kids so fucked up."

"Not you," he says.

"Oh yeah, me," I say.

He moves closer, takes me by the wrists, gets close to my face, "Not you," he says, then he kisses me. It's soft and he pulls back. He looks at me for a minute. "You got it, B?"

"Yes," I whisper.


	30. Chapter 30

My Ex-con 30

He's got my brown eyes.

See I don't want to have kids. I mean, every twelve weeks I get a shot. Even though I'm not…well I haven't been active. But still, things can happen to a woman. Now me, I would have died fighting, but even still, things happen.

So my peace is this shot, every twelve weeks. Before that the pill. I will never pro-create. Not with this sludge called my gene-pool. And if I wasn't so afraid of doctors I would have had my tubes tied. So I take care of it another way.

But he's got my brown eyes.

I admit I was curious. That's what brought me over here, to Jasper's.

And Edward, he was eight when he went into the system. So he's here too, even though he shouldn't be, even though I told him to wait in the van.

But this little kid, Charlie, he's my blood.

I'm not happy about that. But here he is. After the fact, I don't beat my head on a wall, you know? I may not like it, but I know how to adapt. Maybe too much.

Jasper, the leaky boat. The beat goes on. This kid has his father's last name, the gold banner Swan, and his father's kinky hair. His mom was obviously black, but he's blonde and coffee with milk-skinned. He's…well he's beautiful.

And skinny. His neck barely looks strong enough to hold up his head.

And we're looking at each other.

"What are you looking at?" he blurts, angry.

Oh yeah. He's a punk.

I notice the remnants of a frozen dinner on the floor…and the wall. Alice is dabbing at this with a Kleenex and a spray bottle of Simple Green.

Some little fucker didn't like Salisbury steak.

Jasper is sweating and it's not that warm in here.

"B I've been a little busy, right?" he says almost without space between the words.

"Well you can forget Kansas City. I called Jacob this afternoon and it wasn't easy getting him last minute," I say.

Charlie folds his skinny brown arms and walks past us into the living room where he sits on the couch. I have a flash of Jasper at his age, the same rat's nest on his head. He was a punk, too.

"Well I…we are trying to get the kid…."

"Don't talk about me," Charlie yells, not turning around.

"Shit," Jasper says looking at me with such distress, it's not nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be when Jasper got his. I'm not taking any joy in this at all.

"He needs the work, Bella," Alice says throwing the nasty Kleenex in the garbage and going to the box on the table for a few more.

"I got a kid," Jasper says too loudly in Alice's direction.

"People with kids work, Jasper," Alice yells.

"I'm not your kid," Charlie rockets off the couch yelling this. He grabs the ceramic dish on the coffee table and flings it down so it shatters.

Jasper goes for him, using f-speak. Okay, even I know that's not cool.

Funny thing is Edward is on Jasper before me. "Whoa, whoa," Edward is saying to Jasper, getting close, corralling him, and holding his hands out. Oh no, these two can' fight, and these apartment walls aren't so thick to prevent someone from already punching in a 911.

We need to get out of here, but me, I'm already focused on this kid. I don't know why when he's not my look-out. He's looking at me.

"I want Granma," he demands.

I look from Alice to Jasper to Edward, I mean, Granma died, right?

"Your grandma is in heaven," Alice says firmly.

He's looking around for the next thing to throw.


	31. Chapter 31

My Ex-con 31

Alice follows behind the van. She's driving Edward home. Charlie is perched on the seat beside me, wearing his seatbelt and watching the road like I did earlier when Edward was driving.

He has to be tired. Exhausted. He's in evident grief. And he's a little shit about all of it. But now he's quiet and on-guard.

It was his choice to come home with us. He said he wanted to go home with me. I said I had to work in the morning but I'd come and see him. He said he didn't want to stay with Jasper and he wanted to go home with me.

Jasper took me aside, begged me to take Charlie for just a few days. He'd go to Kansas City and they'd finish faster with three guys and it would give him a chance to get his head on straight, between finding out about Charlie and going after Alice, he knew he wasn't in a good place. And Alice couldn't handle this kid on her own.

I raised Jasper. He's only two years younger, but he was always mine. So I've seen it all. But I'm not looking to be anyone's mother.

"You can work here tomorrow with Riley. Call him and have him pick you up." No way I'm letting my brother leave town. "The kid…can stay with me until the weekend," I say. Inside I'm reading myself the riot act. I'm throwing stuff too. I'm saying what a fool I am, a spineless, lying fool.

But I glance at this kid now, in profile. I've been here before. That's all I know. And why in hell I should be here again is anyone's guess, but life is fucked. I must have gotten too happy with Edward. God forbid I should actually have it that easy, or bask too long in the glow of new love. My five joyful minutes are up. It's time to struggle again.

Charlie sits back on a big sigh and folds his arms. The thing that got him was Edward's casual remark about the dog. We needed to get home and let out the dog. After that, the kid was all ears.

"You got a dog?" he'd asked Edward. He said they lived in an apartment and Grandma couldn't have dogs in there. Edward said he had a big dog named The Bull. "She calls him Bully," he points at me.

That's when the kid said he was going with us. Edward looked at me like, whoops. After that I was railroaded.

But I knew it was coming. Like clouds rolling in before the storm. I saw those clouds.

"Hey so you know, we don't throw things at my house," I say to Charlie. It's what I do—lay down the rules.

"I don't throw things," he says strongly. "Just there."

I don't say anymore. His defense is Swiss cheese.


	32. Chapter 32

My Ex-con 32

"You can't yell around him, man," Edward is saying, staying close to Bull while Charlie pets him.

"You can't?" Charlie says, like playing along.

"Hell no man. He's an old fighter. Toughest in the city. See that ear? Chewed on."

Charlie touches the ear.

"You make him fight?" Charlie asks.

"Me? I rescued him man. He was running along the road, I said, you want a ride? He got in. We've been together ever since."

I am doing the dishes and rolling my eyes.

"How you know about him?" Charlie says.

"Everybody knew him. He's famous in the fights."

"You see those fights?"

"Just heard about him."

"Wait a minute, how you know he was famous?"

"Someone else told me. Said, that's The Bull. I said, he lives with me now."

Charlie is thinking this over.

"We walk careful around here, right bud?" Edward says.

"It's time for bed," I say, dishtowel in my hand.

Charlie says, "Can Bull sleep with me?"

"No," I say while Edward says, "Sure."

Upstairs there is that one spare room across from mine. I flick on the light. The bed is made up, but it's been there a while, so I go in and fluff up the covers.

"How come you don't have kids?" he asks.

I keep myself in a state of sterility but of course that's tmi. "We just have Bull," I say. Boy do we.

So I get him settled and it takes a while and Edward is messing around getting ready for bed too and to my surprise he's waiting in my bed.

"You can't sleep there with the kid right there," I say pointing across the hall.

"Perfect time to make the shift," he says. "What's worse, me in one room like I'm the other kid, or me in here with you?"

"It's…confusing for him. We're not…you know."

"He thinks we are," Edward says. "He called you my wife."

"Did you tell him?"

"No. Get in here."

Oh my shit. Do I want to be in bed with him? Does water quench a parched throat in the desert?

I'm too tired to argue. I strip off some, meaning careful removal of shoes, pants and shirt.

"Think I should look at that now?" he says meaning my aching foot.

"In the morning," I manage to say.

"Come 'ere," he says pulling me in.

"What am I doing?" I say, in the comfortable environment of his arms.

He starts with the kissing. "I'm not doing that," I say.

"What?" he says between kisses as his hand travels down, down, down.


	33. Chapter 33

Thank-you readers

My Ex-con 33

We are quiet with a kid across the hall. It feels weird at first, not Edward's hand on me, his big hand so sneaky under the covers. It is the world's sneakiest hand I know that. But the hand, and the kisses, when he kisses it's boy in a way, I mean, he's so eager, but it's man. It's man. He's…hungry.

"God…I love kissing you," he says all breath and warm lips and I love it, the way he tastes, just this, I am there, but there's a kid so I can't leave like this, can I? What if the house burns down? I know…we're starting the fire…the fire. I'm fire, he's water. He's water and air and I'm fire and earth. It's for real how it is…with this man…of mine.

Bull is shut out in the hall. He lies between the rooms. I heard his heavy drop to the floor and he hasn't moved, and we are so silent and stealth and his hand, his fingers demanding but gentle, but rough, pushing in me, and his glad shudder, my glad shudder, his kiss and smile.

"God, I love kissing you," he says, and I am breathing, breathing, just a beating heart, and I feel, I feel.

"Edward," I whisper. "Edward." And he moans, his mouth open, on my mouth open.

"Say it again," he whispers, and I do, barely a sound, but still he hears me. "Say it again," he says and his tongue, and mine, oh God I love him. "Say it again."

And I do.

I do. And I'm crazy. I'm fire.

1111111111111

In the morning, before my eyes are open, even here, up against him, this man whose skin I've tried to claw my way into, this man who's come into my body, stormed my heart, stormed its brittle resisting walls, its silent padlocked chambers, he has awakened love…in me.

For him I live. For him I die.

I am ridiculous. And I don't care. I am a fool then.

But I run deep.

When I'm cold, oh I am January. When I love…I'm the lava in the center of earth.

You will not reach my end.

I look at him, asleep. And it's done. I'm done. I know that.

Then it hits me, the kid. What if…what if…he fell out of bed or ran away or died in his sleep? The kid…my God…my watch…I don't know…I hurry up, but I need…clothes, and my foot…shit that hurt.

"Whaa…?" Edward.

I hear Bull get on his feet other side of the door, and I whip open that same door and trip over…and my foot, shit the pain, and then the dog, I fall on that dog and he yelps and the thing I tripped over, the kid yells out.

"Fuck," I yell, and that kid that slept in front of my door and next to the dog that…could have…for all we know. It's a mess of bodies and I'm one of them. Edward stands in the doorway looking at the three of us, Bull now sniffing my foot which I think is bleeding, and I check the Ace and yeah it's bleeding.

"You going to just stand there?" I say to my dear love who is in his boxers and scratching under his arm a little as that Jasper-haired miscreant is rubbing his eyes looking daggers at me.

"She threw an f-bomb," he says to Edward.

Edward steps over Charlie and yells at Bull to get back. He bends over and hands under my arms he hoists me up like I'm the eight year old. "Come on B," he says helping me into the bathroom.

Our first morning.


	34. Chapter 34

My Ex-con 34

I have a to-do list that might rival Michelle Obama's.

I have a kid to enroll in school. I have a lawyer's meeting to attend. I have to take Edward to his meeting with his parole officer. I have to take him to register for a driver's license. I have a kid who needs more clothes and definitely shoes. I have two jobs to look at and bid and a dog to take to the vet's and I don't think we can go all the way to Friday before we load up on more groceries.

And here's what happens at the school: Charlie's records have been forwarded to the public school in Jasper's district. There I learn that Charlie is woefully behind in school, a whole grade behind other eight year olds which is no big deal, but if he can't keep up, he could end up even more behind.

Charlie wasn't held back because of a plan to let him mature a little more. He was held back for poor attendance.

Charlie doesn't want to go to school. He has told me this in clear language as we entered the building. He has accused me of just wanting to get rid of him. I am working my crutches, glad of something to do with my hands because I wouldn't want to wring his scrawny little neck or something. What I know, he's not going to just skip down the hall swinging his lunch pail.

The people at the school make me nervous. I have a folder of Charlie's information that was shoved into my hands the night before by Alice, along with Charlie's one suitcase that has yet to be unpacked. Charlie's shots are not up to date and until that happens he cannot come to school. I find out where the health department is and I need to call them and make an appointment to bring this up where it should be. Charlie also needs a physical. Charlie needs to see a dentist. Charlie needs his eyes examined.

Oh, and Charlie might not read.

Don't get me started on the hair.

So I am given papers and make a stack to have Jasper sign later. Charlie sits on a chair along the wall the whole time. When I turn to look at him he is watching me. He looks mad.

Afterwards we walk silently down the hall together.

"It's a nice building, right?" I say.

"I hate it," he says.

"Well I think you'll like it here if you give it a chance," I say.

"I don't want to come here," he says with more heat.

We are passing a large, open library that appears to be the center of the building. The classrooms are built around it on two levels. The library is bright and welcoming. There is a big red Clifford sitting on a table and a cool aquarium. Two attendants are putting books back on shelves.

"You like to read?" I say, knowing he doesn't. I've stopped so we can look the place over, maybe get some good vibes going about this place, and also, my armpits are killing me.

"I hate reading," he blurts loudly enough one of the librarians looks for the source of this outburst. "I don't want to come here. I told you but you don't," intake of breath here and, " listen." That last word is really loud.

Both librarians are craning their necks. Charlie takes off running down the hall. Before he can exit he's stopped by the woman manning the doors. I have the hall pass so Little Shit is not going anywhere, even though he tries, rattling the silver bar on the door and making the lady shit her pants.

I'm mad too. As I approach him standing there with his arms folded and head down as the lady rebukes him, I am making a mental picture of going old school on him and putting him over my knee. But of course this is public school where they arrest you and throw you in the janitor's closet or something if they see corporal punishment.

I get to the door and show the woman the pass and she's still talking. Something about no running in the halls and behaving and whatever, and now I'm defensive. "We get it," I say, cutting her short.

I mean, the fate of the world…you know? Take a pill.

I touch his shoulder and we get out the door.

Now he cuts loose. "I want to go back to Granma's," he yells. He takes off running again. I can't keep up.

Edward is out of the car. "Hey," he calls and Charlie goes right to him, yelling his case.

"…and I don't want to go there," I hear him saying loudly as I get closer.

Edward gets to my door and opens it for me. He takes my crutches.

"You," he says to Charlie, "ass in the car and shut your mouth."

We all get in and Charlie's lips are sealed. This shows me Little Shit can control himself when he wants to.

"You pull a stunt like that again kid…," I say.

"What he do?" Edward asks.

Charlie is in front with me and Edward is in the back seat with Bull.

"I didn't want to go there. I hate school," he says jutting his bottom lip. This kid has an anger that pisses me off. I've got second hand anger.

"He ran around and acted like…a freakin' little beast," I say.

"You tell Bella you're sorry for acting like a punk," Edward says.

"I'm not a punk and I'm not sorry," he says slamming his back against the seat.

Then he seems to remember about Bull and he looks back there really quick.

I sigh and get ready to start the car.

"Bella, don't start the car yet. We're sitting here until Charlie tells you he's sorry."

"Why?" Charlie says loudly. Then he looks at Bull.

"Do it," Edward says.

Charlie has his skinny arms folded and he growls. "I'm sorry." He says this through his teeth with his eyes closed.

"That wasn't nice," Edward says. "Look at my Bella and do it nice."

I'm squeezing the keys. Charlie looks right at me, a hot blaze in his eyes. "Sorry," he says more evenly.

He closes his eyes and bangs his head against the seat and lets out a huge sigh.

"That okay with you B?" Edward says.

I start the car.


	35. Chapter 35

My Ex-con 35

From the school we go to the walk-in clinic at the humane society.

"You think he's socialized?" I say to Edward, meaning Bully.

Edward is chewing on the end of a match. He shoots a look at Charlie. "You may be the only one, B."

I have to smile at that as I dig in my purse for my card. "Just sign my name," I say. It's the business expense card.

"Nah, we'll wait for you okay?" he says.

"Well take him in to see the vet if you get called, and if they give you trouble about the card tell them I'll be there. Otherwise just use it, okay?" I say.

He says, "Sure B."

So Edward gets out with Bull, but he knocks on Charlie's window and I use the controls on my side to lower the glass thinking, what the hell now?

Charlie has leaned away a little, toward me as it turns out though I doubt that's his intention, but Edward is kind of a commanding presence there.

"Hey dude, you walk the line for B, hear?" Edward tells him.

"What line?" Charlie says, and I know he is scaring himself speaking so loudly, but I have a feeling the more scared he is the louder he gets.

Before Edward can answer Charlie turns to me. His face is dirty. I swear I washed it this morning…didn't I? "Why can't we go with them?" Charlie asks.

Before I can answer Charlie ratchets right up, "I wanna go with Bull. You gonna take me back to children's services?"

"Dude…," Edward is saying.

"We're coming back here Charlie," I say loudly. I hold Charlie's face, both cheeks. His hands are on my wrists ready to pry me off.

"Charlie, Charlie, look at me, look," I say. When he looks I say, "We're coming back.""

His gritted teeth are mossy. He brushed them, didn't he?

"Where are we going?" he asks distressed.

"McDonalds," Edward says before I can answer. I let go of Charlie and we're both looking at him. Edward shoots me that 'whoops' look again and he pitches that match and says, "Little dude, you like McDonalds?"

"I love McDonalds," Charlie says too enthusiastically. "Maria used to bring it all the time."

Maria. His Mom? Edward shoots me a look. "Dude, calm down. Take a breath."

Charlie is having a hard time calming down. He's rocking back and forth and chattering about what he's going to get.

Edward reaches in and unlocks the door and opens it. He squats in the vee the door makes. "Charlie," he says, and he waits while Charlie settles down. Charlie holds his hands tightly against his chest. He wrings his hands and gets quiet but I can hear each breath.

"You and Bull have to go to the clinics," Edward says.

"I don't like it…," Charlie begins.

"Dude," Edward says sternly. "You help Bella with her crutches and get the doors and no bullshit crying or yelling. I hear that crap and you're not getting those nuggets. We good?"

"Yeah," Charlie says thinly while his fingers tangle.

"Okay my man. Give Bull a pat," he says.

Charlie pats Bull. Then he and Edward bump knuckles and Edward tries to extend the move by uncurling Charlie's fingers and Charlie wants to try again and they do it perfectly while I manage not to scream.

"Okay Dude. See you in a little while." He stands up and bending over he looks beyond Charlie to me, "He'll be good for you B. Charlie gave his word." Edward winks at me.

Why am I not comforted?

So Charlie and I head to the clinic, and I try not to watch Edward in the rearview as he herds Bull into the clinic. This is the first time I've separated from my ex-con since bringing him home, and I'm fidgety.

I also feel like crap. I'm driving with one hand and holding my phone with the other while it gives me directions.

11111111111111111111

By the time Charlie and I get back to the vet clinic, Charlie is asleep. When I park I turn around and take a minute to stare at this little mass of humanity slumped in the back seat that is my nephew. Holy smokes what a disaster.

He has not earned McDonalds, but I know I'll take him anyway.

Something happened in that nurse's office. I sat on a chair and held him between my legs. He was full on crying at this point and he stepped on my sore foot. I said the f-word and he called me on it in front of the nurse. She left the room at my request so I could calm him down.

"Put your hands over my ears," I said.

"Why?" he asked, tears streaking the dirt on his face.

"Do it and see," I said so he could make my hearing aids whistle.

He shook his head no, stubborn as hell.

"Okay," I said. "Here's the deal. I'm gonna ask the nurse for some ice."

"What for?"

"We'll hold it where the shot goes in and you'll barely feel a thing."

"I don't want a shot," he says, full on crying again, mouth wide and spit strings. I'm pretty sure I spot a cavity in one of his back teeth.

"Hey, too loud," I say less than friendly. "You need to get ahold."

The nurse comes back in. I ask for ice. She's not happy about it, but I say it again with please on the end and she leaves.

"No," he wails. "No."

"You ever have a Shamrock shake?" I ask turning into Edward.

"What's that?" he cries, rubbing snot up his arm.

"A green shake with whipped cream on the top and a cherry."

"At McDonalds?" He wipes the arm on the back of his shirt.

"Yeah. For St. Patrick's Day." Really it's like drinking toothpaste, but Charlie could use some toothpaste.

The nurse comes in with an ice pack then.

Charlie moves in deeper between my feet, right where I want him. I look at the nurse and nod a little. "Right or left?" I say.

She says left. I put the ice on the right and stare at her. She gets me. While I'm chilling the right, she comes up and pokes him on the left. He turns to look at her and shouts, "Hey," but it's too late.

He's checking the mark and she gets him in the butt where I've already lowered his pants.

Then he faints and I lift some to grab him. The pain shoots up from my foot but I manage to gather him to me and keep him from crashing onto the floor.

The nurse is speaking, but I look at his face. He's out, his eyes are partly open. I don't know what I'm going to do with him. I mean for the rest of his life.

Then he comes to. He immediately cries and says he's going to be sick. I stand and get him over the trashcan in time for him to throw up what little there is in his stomach. He hasn't eaten much breakfast apparently.

He cries that now he doesn't want McDonalds.

He needs to be carried to the car, but they have a wheelchair instead because I can't carry him. So the nurse helps me wheel him out there and I think we are going to help him into the front seat. That's when I learn that an eight year old shouldn't ride in the front seat until he is thirteen because of the air bags. So we get him in the back seat. That's when I find out he still needs a booster as he is small for his age. Jasper was the same. His hair adds six inches, but Charlie is one inch under the cut-off height of four-nine for being able to ride without a booster.

"Okay. I'll get him one," I say in a dead voice.

I have more paperwork to add to the file Alice had given me and the school has fattened. I need to either get Charlie on Jasper's insurance or get him some through the health department.

I have twenty-five minutes to get Edward to his parole officer while I floor it to the lawyer's office. I already know there is no time to dump the dog at home, and dumping the kid with someone dying to babysit the bad seed is even more far-fetched.

So then I park like I said before and I'm looking at Charlie and Edward knocks on the passenger's window. I click the locks open and he takes Bull in the back and lets him in and Charlie wakes up because Bull licks his face. Edward slams the backdoor and goes around to get in beside me. He's big there, like the other day when I first picked him up. He looks as frazzled as I feel though.

He leans and kisses me hello. I can't imagine how I could inspire that, but it's nice. "That was so damn humiliating," he says meaning Bull.

"What'd he do?" I say wasting no time now. I'm already in motion.

"Peed the floor, attacked a cat, and stuck his nose up some lady's ass," Edward says, and Charlie laughs.

I have not heard Charlie laugh before.

It's too loud and kind of maniacal, but hey, it's better than the big ass crying.

"Are we going to McDonald's now?" he says.

We're not. There's no time yet. I have to drop Edward off for his appointment and speed toward mine. Bull will have to wait in the car. And Charlie will have to go in the lawyer's with me.

Mother…cluck.


	36. Chapter 36

My Ex-con 36

I know he smells like vomit. I have zipped his jacket as high as I can, but I think it's on his jacket too. So I'm smoothing over his hair because I need to do something right now with Mr. Carson's daughter glaring at me this way. She is following the movement of my hand and looking at Charlie like he's a chip off the old block—of garbage.

I tell myself no. I had nothing to do with this. I don't know why Mr. Carson did it this way and I can't dig him up and ask him, so we're all stuck with it.

I wondered if he'd forgive my mortgage. I didn't know what to expect. I was prepared to inherit the old horsehair sofa on the sun porch or something like that, but his house and its contents as well as the remainder of the mortgage on my house—I can't feature it.

"Can I get my shake now please," Charlie says through his teeth like he's on his last nerve. His breath smells like Tootsie Rolls as he's emptied a small candy dish of the sticky turds. They've been my salvation as his teeth have been stuck together most of the hour and fifteen we've been here.

The daughter Catherine has had plenty to say. I just can't hear her right now. She's fine with over a million in cash and assets, but Mr. Carson has treated me like a daughter, too, and now we have instantaneous sibling rivalry. Too bad she didn't want to compete with me when Mr. Carson was dying and needing care.

I sign papers and I'm given keys. I know Edward must be wondering where I am and I can't imagine I'll have a car left with Bull using it for a kennel.

So I get out there and I let Bull out and hold the rope while he ends up peeing on the front tire of the car next to mine and I know that's Carson's daughter's car as it's a rental. She lives in California.

We get in the car and go for Edward and Charlie hangs on for the meal of happiness.


	37. Chapter 37

My Ex-con 37

Edward is waiting in front of the building housing his parole officer. He is smoking a cigarette and he looks like he's done time. Coming here must remind him in a big way. He's been out for what…eight, nine days? So much has happened it's our own story of creation. Yeah we've built a whole new world in a little over a week.

Edward's cigarette is not lost on Charlie. He comments with a big, "Ummmm he's smoking and he could die."

So I pull up. Edward is getting in on the passenger's side but I say, "No. You have to drive."

"What's wrong?" he says.

But I do not answer. I am already getting out and hopping around the car. He can see my sock is bloody.

"You're going to the hospital," he says, his hand on my waist. He helps me into the car.

He runs around the front and gets in on the driver's side. The seat is too close to the wheel and he must make adjustments.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"I'm fine. Put on your seatbelt. Go out here and make a left," I say.

"Are we going to McDonald's now?" Charlie says.

"Yes," I say.

So we go to McDonalds and Charlie finally gets his meal and his shake. Edward's food is beside him riding the console and I have a Diet Coke and no appetite for anything more…I am full. So full.

We get to the hospital and the emergency room and I fill out paperwork and Edward has gone back outside to walk Bull. Charlie has gone with him. They call me back before my entourage can return. I am put in a room and it's a wait then. Finally the door opens and it's Edward and Charlie.

Now we all wait and when Charlie gets restless Edward takes him out again, but not before giving me a kiss that tastes faintly of onions so I guess he ate his quarter pounder.

111111111111

A couple of hours later we are on our way home. My cut is cleaned and rebandaged. I am to stay off of it, really stay off of it for a couple of weeks or I may face surgery.

When we reach the house we are tired. I look across the street and up a couple of houses at Mr. Carson's silent home and try to imagine it's mine.

And the one I'm in, the threshold of which Edward carries me across, I try to imagine it is also mine now. For real.

Bull is running through the house, to his water dish where he laps noisily, and Charlie is saying he'll get Bull more water. Edward takes me up the stairs, slow steady steps and he's looking at me and smiling.

"What?" I say. Even with all this day has cost me, I've come home in the black—well blacker than I've ever been or imagined being.

"You gonna tell me?" he says.

"Charlie needs a bath, his hair washed, his clothes washed, and he needs to brush his teeth," I say.

"That's what's got you so dug in?" he says.

I remember a time, just a flash, when I woke up years ago and there he was in my bed, and he had a bruise over his eye and a split lip that leaked a pink stain on my pillowcase. He opened his eyes and looked at me a minute. Those were the days before he had words, or deeds so bad he couldn't talk about them.

"You gonna tell me?" I said.

He felt that sore lip with his tongue and he grinned until the lip said no.

I think of that now, how he kept secrets, so dug in his heart pounded them to powder and they flowed through his blood until everything about him—his silence, his looks, a pink stain on my pillow…seemed mysterious.

Mr. Carson said not to take up with a yahoo like my brother and his friends. I shielded them from him and him from them as well as I could. And as long as the work was done and done well Mr. Carson's health didn't allow him to look deeper.

They called him the old pervert and he called them the ya-hoos.

Then they went to prison and my heart—Mr. Carson could see. "Don't give them a thought," he said. "You have to take care of yourself, do for yourself."

I didn't like it when he spoke about my family, so he didn't very often, but he'd speak in generalities. Carson said it was best I kept to myself until someone deserving came along. He'd seen many a good woman brought down by the wrong man and it behooved him how many women married beneath them. I couldn't help the brother, we didn't pick those things, but I should use Jasper's time in prison to make the break from him and that other ya-hoo.

If I disappointed Carson anywhere, it was here. I took Jasper in on the day he was released. I continued to be successful and any problems Jasper caused I absorbed just like always.

So respect grew between myself and my mentor. He was pleased that I never took up with a ya-hoo. I found great satisfaction in caring for him. But before he died he said I should find someone. He worried I'd stay alone and that was no good. Take it from him, he said, and he laughed.

That's the last communication we had. He died a few hours later.

I picked Edward up from the station an hour after leaving Mr. Carson's remains at the cemetery.

"B?" Edward says now, helping me ease onto the bed.

"I have to pee," I say.

He makes to lift me again, as if I'm going to let him set me on the pot. We're not there yet.

"I need my crutches," I say.

He yells down the stairs for Charlie to get my crutches out of the car.

"I'll get you something to eat, B," he says.

And I ease back onto my pillows for a minute, and I let my mind feel the weight of all this day has poured into it.

Pretty soon there is a commotion in the downstairs hall and clomping and metal banging on the stairs. Charlie appears in the doorway, sniffing and wrinkling his nose. I hope he's not getting a cold.

He brings me the crutches and I sit up and take them.

"Thanks Charlie," I say softly.

"Are you crying?" he says.

I feel my cheek and yes, it's wet. I really didn't know.

Before I have to answer he turns and runs downstairs. I use the crutches and for a minute, stand in the hall and listen for what's going on below me. First of all, it's like I've left on a T.V. and it's playing really loudly. I am no longer the one who puts down a dish, picks up a dish, makes a sound, or creeps around soundlessly.

I hear small steps and dog's toenails clicking and a chair scraping and water running and a pan banging on the stove and the refrigerator opening and closing, and a boy laughing, and a man talking.

It's a strange music rumbling under my feet.

I head for the bathroom shaking my head.


	38. Chapter 38

My Ex-con 38

Edward and Charlie bring me some of the leftovers on a tray, a metal one I bought at a yard-sale once. Edward holds the tray with the bowls and the drink, and Charlie carries a package of crackers, a napkin and spoon. Edward puts the tray on the dresser and arranges pillows behind my back and puts one under my foot because they said to keep it elevated.

Charlie sets his things on my nightstand.

I thank them and Charlie shoots a look at Edward. "Bull licked the crackers but just the pack, not the real crackers," he says scratching his nose.

I look at Edward too and we smile.

"Why do you have those things in your ears?" he asks me.

"They help me hear."

Now he wants to cup my ears like he wouldn't earlier. I submit, bowing my head so he can get his hands where he wants them. My hearing aids sing and he smiles. When he does it again, Edward says, "That's enough buddy."

I ask Edward to bring me a bunch of things from my office, and Edward says they'll get right on it, but first he's going to start Charlie's bath water.

So he does that and Charlie is right there with him talking a mile a minute, showing Edward where he got his shots.

Once I get everything I need to run a business from my bed Edward turns off Charlie's water and they go through his clothes and the two of them go down to do some laundry.

I make the first call to Jasper and he picks up right away. The work is going well at the four-family flat he says. They are doing the display apartment first, all white and grays which I already had ordered and delivered.

I tell him about the new developments with Charlie. He says Alice is so mad at him she's still threatening to leave. He hopes I can talk to her.

The grandmother. She died in the apartment, he says. Charlie found her when he woke that morning.

We are silent.

"Anything else?" I finally say.

"I don't know what to do with him B. Maybe you can keep him a couple more days? Just until I smooth it with Alice. She's really thrown," he says. "If you could just keep him a few days."

We talk a little more about the job then. He needs to focus. He needs to work.

"Jasper," I say at the end, "when you were his age…we used to hide in the basement to get away from Mom. Remember? That's what it's like to be eight."

"I had you, B. I knew you'd make it all right."

"How am I going to do that for him, Jasper? I have a business to run."

"B, you're the best one I know."

"Jasper," I whisper, making sure Charlie hasn't somehow snuck in here to hear me reject him. "You have to be there for him. He's your son."

"I know, B. I know. I just need some time. Alice…."

"Stay on your meds," I say over him.

There is silence for a few seconds. "B…," he finally says.

"I'm here," I whisper fiercely. I hear Edward and Charlie on the stairs. Edward comes in my room with a basketful of clothes. Charlie carries a couple of towels. He's laughing at Bull and reporting to Edward how funny Bull is.

"He got in the trash," Charlie tells me, oblivious that I'm on the phone.

"Don't be mad," Jasper says. "Don't be mad B."

Charlie comes to my bed and stands there holding the towels. "After my bath we're having ice cream. You want some?" he says.

I click off my phone and take Charlie's arm and I reach for the Band-Aid covering the cottonball that's over the place where he got his shot. I slowly peel one side free.

"Ow," Charlie says, but I know it doesn't hurt.

I slowly pull the Band-Aid the rest of the way, and he's looking at the small pinprick the needle made. There's a welt too. I bend and kiss it then, and when I raise he's looking at me.

"It didn't help," he says loudly.

"Come on dude," Edward says taking him by the shoulder and leading him toward the door. Edward looks back at me and puckers his lips like sending a kiss.

Once they get in the bathroom Charlie comes back. He plows into my bed, jarring everything and throws his arms around my neck. He squeezes me a little and before I can so much as pat his back he runs out again and I hear the bathroom door close.


	39. Chapter 39

My Ex-con 39

"It's really soft," Charlie says after he's asked me to smell his hair. Edward just blow-dried it and Charlie keeps rubbing it.

"Very nice," I say, as much to him as the one standing behind him with a towel over his shoulder and a smile on his face.

"The teeth," I say, and Charlie shows me proudly, first clenched, then open-mouthed and I see that cavity again.

"Good Charlie," I say.

I don't give a lot of compliments, but this kid, has he had any? I doubt it, so I get over myself and get gregarious. "You're handsome," I tell him.

He makes an embarrassed sound, looking back at Edward.

"You need to stay in your bed tonight," Edward says.

He gives me a look that does nothing to inspire the idea he'll stay put.

"You will," Edward answers for him and the two of them go across the hall.

I try to stack some of my mess to make room for Edward. I've called Artie and he and Jacob are doing well in Kansas City. Thing is, Arite can bid jobs all right, and I need him back here to look at and bid new work. He thinks they'll finish up by Friday.

It's a while before Edward returns to my room. I know he and Charlie had some kind of long conversation.

"He's all shiny," I say.

"Yeah. He's a great kid."

I am taken aback.

"What?" Edward says.

"Nothing," I say. "You…hit it off."

"Yeah. Jasper's gonna miss it, you know?"

"You know he has to crash and burn for a while."

Edward shrugs. He starts to gather dishes on the tray. "Gets old," he says.

I remind myself to let him have his own relationship with Jasper. I learned back in the day to allow that. Edward was always someone I didn't have to protect Jasper from or protect from Jasper.

I tell him about Artie and the two jobs I need to look at.

"What about Riley?" he says.

"I need him on the four-family. I don't let Jasper work alone." I don't have to explain that to him. "And Riley just…he doesn't want the responsibility." What I'm not saying is he's not the one I want representing my business. He's a good worker, but he doesn't present well and he always leaves things out of the bids and I end up having to take the hit.

"Then let me do it," Edward surprises me by suggesting.

I stare at him.

"Close your mouth," he says. "I can take measurements. You tell me what you need and I'll bring you all the facts and take pictures and you can figure it."

"Yeah…I…I just hadn't thought about you…doing that," I say. Does he have the clothes? Just work clothes, but still, yeah, he has what he needs. And he's articulate. I just wasn't expecting him to have the confidence.

He clears the bed and sits next to me. "I'm more than a good fuck," he says smiling.

I laugh, but I'm not sure what he's doing. "Who says you're good?"

I don't know why that earns me a kiss, but it does. "You need a reminder," he says.

I don't say one way or another.

"You can't walk to the sites," I say. The lack of a license is a real pain in the ass.

"Riley will have to take off during lunch or something."

"You need to apply for your birth certificate so you can get your license. We'll do it on-line. You know where you were born, right?"

"Under a rock in Paducah," he says. "B, you need me to go in and work with him and Jasper?"

"I need you here…for a couple of days." I nod across the hall toward Charlie, but it's me too. He knows it is.

"Yeah whatever you need B. I know you're spending all kinds of money. I'll make it up."

"No," I say. I mean, it's nothing. It's really nothing compared to…having him.

Looking at him, I've no doubt a woman would hire him in an instant. But would a husband? And husbands do most of the hiring.

"You're too…you know what you are," I say.

He laughs. "What…a felon?"

"No, geez," I say frustrated. "I was going to say…hot. You're a hottie."

He likes this. "That's your hesitation in sending me out? You want to keep this all to yourself?" It gets me another kiss, a longer one.

"Maybe you could play it down…wear a cap. Borrow my glasses, my hearing aids. You go in clean shaven," I say.

"Yes Ma-am," he says. "Don't want to leave a burn," he's doing the Don Juan thing, close to my face, staring at my mouth.

"I mean it Cullen. You can't use the face." I don't say, the voice, the moves, the laugh, the body—the hair, lack of it but still. I get going it's a big list.

"I know how to be…B," he says, then he lets me have it again and the heck with my paperwork and calculator and check-book. I hear those things crunch as we lay back.

"Edward," Charlie calls.

Edward lifts a little and he's looking at me. "The baby's crying," he says. "Says he has bad dreams."

We sit up. I start righting the mess. "Go to him," I say. He wants to and I want him to.

Edward gets up, takes the rest of the dirty dishes, from my supper and the ice cream fest we had up here after Charlie's bath.

He stops in Charlie's doorway. My doorway lines up with Charlie's across the hall, but our beds don't line up, so I can just hear Charlie's voice. "What's up?" Edward says.

"I can't sleep."

"Got the flashlight?" Edward says.

I see the glow where Charlie must have clicked it on.

"Don't shine it in my face bud," Edward says over Charlie's wicked laugh. "You make it dance around and you'll get sleepy."

"What if I fall asleep and waste the batteries?"

"I told you I'll be checking in here lots, and Bull is right outside the door. Nothing gets past either one of us."

"You ever kill anybody?" Charlie asks.

Edward says, "I thought you were going to be hurt, I'd hurt someone over that, feel me?"

"Edward," I whisper. Holy shit, talk about creative parenting. Is that what we're doing? Parenting?

"Would you kill them?" Charlie.

"I'd put a hurt on them. They wouldn't come back."

Charlie laughs over this.

"Go to sleep now, kid," Edward says. He looks at me after he steps out of the room. He winks and I wave.

"Hurry back," I mouth.

He looks interested. Big smile and a light step down the stairs, dishes rattling along.

It's not what he thinks. Not saying there won't be sex, but it's more than that. I'm about to explode with my news. He hasn't asked. I didn't think he would. He might think there's nothing to tell.

But there is. This is the very kind of thing I might have talked over with Mr. Carson, but you see the futile idea of that. Mr. Carson is now the reason for the news that makes me feel ready to burst. Not only has he increased my security and wealth, he's lifted the monthly pressure of a mortgage payment from my shoulders. Granted, some quick math shows I'll have eight thousand a year in real estate taxes between the two places, but even putting that aside will be a pittance compared to my mortgage formerly payable to Mr. Carson. He had owned my property and was my financier.

I had expected to have to refinance and payoff his estate. Or Catherine. But now, I own both properties free and clear. And while my home is solid and well-made, Mr. Carson's home is the finest on our street. It's been excellently cared for, and is made in the Art Deco style I've always loved. It has a full front porch and a covered patio in back. There is an in-ground pool added in the nineties. Charlie…will die and I don't know why I say that, but I've had this vision all evening of Charlie jumping in that water, wearing an inner-tube of course.

That's if I keep the place.

Yet…if life has let up its lion's paw enough that I can move out from under before it comes crashing down once more, holding me prisoner with its claws while it licks its chops, if it has lifted so it can scratch or toy with someone else for a while…I am ready to grab Edward's hand…and Charlie's…and run as fast and far as we can.

Oh yeah.


	40. Chapter 40

My Ex-con 40

"B," Edward whispers loudly in my doorway, "I'm gonna take Bull out one more time…."

I look at the clock. He has twenty minutes before curfew.

"I know," he says before I can remind him.

I crook my finger that he should come closer.

"What is it Babe?"

He steps in and leans over me.

"When you hit the street, go right instead of left." He always goes left as that takes you deeper into the neighborhood and less traffic. Right eventually reaches the boulevard.

"There's a house across the street, 1550. It's dark. Um…pay attention to it. I have a story…later."

"Okay."

"And you have twenty minutes," I add because, yeah, control freak.

As soon as he's gone I hear the barefeet on the floor before I see the head of soft blond hair, all the wire in it confused now it's so soft.

I'm reminded that kids often don't do what they're told, or in Jasper's case, he never did, and maybe in this guy's case too.

"B?" he says, using my name for the first time. "I can't sleep."

He comes to my bed. I know Edward might not approve, but I pat the space beside me. He hops right up, and he smells sweet. He lifts the covers and kicks his feet under there.

We're side-by-side now.

"How'd you do it?" he says since we're both staring at my foot propped up there like the flag on Iwo Jima or something.

"I stepped on a broken plate," I say.

"Granma hurt her foot," he says.

"What happened?"

"She fell on the stairs."

"Oh. Did you help her?"

"Yes."

"That's a very good boy."

We are still.

"Do you miss her?" I say.

A pause. "Yes."

"I just lost someone I love, too," I say.

"Who?"

"A man who was like a dad to me."

"I hate my dad."

"Whoa."

"What?"

"Hate is a really strong word."

"He yells."

"Yes. But…hate is too much. You can dislike the yelling, how about that?"

"I don't like it."

"I don't either. But…I love your dad. He's my brother. And there are good things about him, too." I start to tell him a funny story about his dad, but he cuts me off.

"I'm not going back there. I want to stay with Edward."

I don't say anything.

"Are you making me go back there?" he moves so he can look right in my face.

I look at him. It's still a shock to me that he doesn't look exactly like Jasper. The hair, the build keep confusing me. They are my eyes, and possibly his mother's features besides. He's darker than us.

What I hate is that look there, the same look in the same eyes, the uncertainty. He shouldn't have to feel that uncertainty.

"You think Edward…or me will let something bad happen to you? We won't."

"Can I stay?"

"Charlie…I'm just the aunt. I've…never had a kid before."

He flops back groaning, and to my surprise crying.

"Charlie," I say, working my arm around his limp body, "this home is yours too. Wherever I am. You're my nephew."

"I want to stay with Edward."

"Charlie, listen, Charlie."

He quiets a little, but I can feel his sadness.

"I'm trying to figure it out, okay? Give me a few days to figure things out. I've never had a kid around before."

It sounds so pathetic. He just wants to know, but I can't lie to him, that's worse.

"Charlie…you haven't had a chance to know your dad."

"I don't want him. He's stupid. He's like Felix."

"Who's Felix."

"And Ray. He's a stupid motherfucker. I hate him."

"Whoa," Edward says from the doorway, still panting from his run. "Whoa bud."

"Okay, this is going downhill," I say making Charlie look at me. "I can tell you you'll be here for the next few days. Okay?"

He won't look at me. His face is crinkled from a fresh round of tears.

"Edward and me are here with you. You don't have to be afraid," I say. "Even if you go home we'll watch out for you."

"You can't," he says. "I don't want to go. I hate Alice. I want Granma. I want my Granma." The crying escalates and I have my arms around him and I'm rocking him a little while he cries.

Edward pulls off his sweaty shirt and drops it on the floor. He kicks off his shoes and he drops his pants and wearing his boxers he gathers up all the crap that doesn't belong on the bed. That done he hits the light and climbs in on the other side of me. Charlie scrambles over me as soon as Edward hits the bed.

Edward barks Charlie's name. I know he's afraid Charlie hurt me with my foot propped, but he didn't. He throws himself on Edward, sweat and all, and grips him tight.

Edward looks at me. I shake my head, but I lay back again, back of my wrist on my forehead. Charlie cries and cries while Edward pats his back.

Somewhere in there we fall asleep.

I know this because I wake up to it, Bull's nose in my face like an interactive alarm clock, and I look over my shoulder at this haphazard pile of us.


	41. Chapter 41

My Ex-con 41

I move out of the pile and sit on the edge of the bed. I've slept so deeply I barely feel awake. The bed moves behind me, and Edward appears carrying Charlie. He easily carries the deadweight of this boy who has spent the night sprawled over him.

Edward comes back, and even in my haze I'm admiring him, tall and strong. I like his insides too, his actions and his heart. This floods me, this love.

He comes to me and kisses my shoulder, back of his fingers grazing my breast. "I'll be back," he says like Arnold.

I stop him, putting my hand on his face. "I…okay."

He takes hold of my hand before I can let it drop. "What's the matter?"

I smile, I mean to, but I'm not sure it makes it to my face.

He looks at me. "You want to do it?" he grins.

I laugh because of course he thinks that's the universal answer to everything.

Maybe it is.

11111111

He's back with the dog pretty quickly. I've just gotten back in bed from peeing and brushing my teeth. He takes the stairs two, three at a time. He gets upstairs and comes in my room, closes and latches the door. His pants and boxers are off quick. He's hard.

I'm laughing.

"I thought for sure he'd be in here with you," he says laughing too as he gets in the bed where I'm waiting. His lips, his face and hands are cold from outside.

He hums as he kisses me, starts on my neck and I swear that alone could make me come. He says from kissing me he doesn't have to brush his teeth now.

"You're…disgusting," I moan as he lifts my undershirt and starts on my breasts. My God.

He's there a while, then down my stomach and off with my pants and underwear, leaving them bunched around the ankle of my bad foot.

He uses the tip of himself to make me come apart because I'm so ready to feel good. He keeps his mouth on mine and catches any sound as he kisses me, kisses me, warm and wet and private, that's how I feel, special and for me only, he's mine.

I am not even breathing and he's in and whispering my praises as he moves and moves and I feel the frantic promise of bliss building yet again with each stroke, he moves my good leg, bends the knee more and widens the gap and he's working now and he's raised and staring at me, my tits, me, me.

He's working it, using it, and he hits it, like one of those things, things at the carnival, the sledgehammer on the target, ring the bell, I hear the bell, I hear it as he insists I let go….

And he seizes up, freezes up and I open my eyes to see him, and his eyes are closed and his mouth moving, a consonant silent, silent, over and over…B.

There's no hurry now. We're calm and happy.

"Good morning," he says, the breathing, and a soft kiss as he slips from me and rolls beside. "Fuck me."

"We," I say panting, "have to…the language."

"Shiver me timbers, then," he says.

Yeah. He makes me shiver, too.

He rolls toward me, his finger tracing along my breasts.

"These nipples, B. You bury them under so many fucking clothes, but when we're here, sometimes I see them through your shirt and damn they're all I can think about baby."

I laugh, but I'm not taking it casually. "It's the Midwest, not a nude beach," I say.

"Yeah B, it's like my job to know where they are at all times. They can't breathe in those bibs you wear."

I can't believe this is so thought out. "Is it really that simple in there?" I say tapping his forehead.

He laughs. "Pretty much." He gathers me in and squeezes, making some animal grunts. "You worry too much."

Good thing, but I don't say this. "What are we going to do with him?"

I'm not used to speaking in plural, but I realize how very relieved I am to have Edward to share the burden of Charlie with.

"He's Jasper's responsibility," I say. I rarely voice these things. Almost never.

"He's a kid," Edward says.

"A responsibility," I say with more firmness than I'd intended.

"I know that, but he's a human, B. Would you like to be Jasper's kid?"

"It's not that simple."

"Yeah, that was about tits, B. I get that it's not that simple across the fucking board."

I get out of his arms and sit up. "You don't think this is complicated?" I say.

He stacks his hands under his head. I love the skin on the underside of his arms. Even when I'm mad.

"First off, be mad at Jasper, not me," he says.

I look up at the ceiling. He's so right. What the eff. "I'm not mad at you," I say. "I'm mad at this whole thing. I'm a mother now? For real? I don't intend to ever be a mother." I say this with such vehemence even I'm surprised at the feeling behind it.

He's sitting up too. "What the fuck's wrong with being a mother? You're perfect at it."

"Not my plan," I say, "not that I'm ever allowed to have one for long."

He looks at me. "Who the hell we talkin' about here B?"

"Charlie."

"Oh yeah?"

"Not you," I say.

"No? That just leaves you then cause it's me or you or me and you you're talking about, not that kid."

"What?"

"You don't want me here, let me know, B."

"Don't start that shit," I say.

"You started it, not me."

"Are you five or something? I never meant you."

"What's the plan then? I blow your plans, showing up here, moving in. You sure as hell been my mother. You even bought my underwear. How you think that makes me feel?"

"What?"

"It ain't easy, B. I intend to pay you back. You gotta know I'm not on the take here."

"I never…."

"Cause that's how you feel, I'm gone. I'm right back at the boarding house and I'll…."

"Stop it," I say, tears in my eyes, hands on his face. "Stop it. You're tearing into us. Stop it."

We're looking at each other, into each other, through each other.

"See that's your trouble with Charlie, B. You're not sure about me," he says.

"That's not it," I say through my teeth.

"Bullshit. I love you. I want you. Just you and everything that comes with you, and if that means Charlie, then make some room, that's how I see it."

I see the difference in us. He's had everything ripped away. But I've been building. I've been holding on.

I'm full. He's…empty. Maybe.

I take in a breath, "You think I don't take him…I'm cruel? I'd still be his aunt."

"B…you been cleaning up the shit from your brother…and me…your whole life. But Charlie's not shit, B."

"I don't think he is. Give me some credit here."

"You're tired, I get it. You got a lot on your plate. I get it. You've been generous. God B, I can't fault you, I come hat in hand. You don't want more, I get that. But you ain't alone this time."

I'm staring at him. "I carry a lot of responsibility."

"I know that. I see."

"I don't say it to be an asshole, but it's true, Edward. I never wanted to be a mother. I can't."

"Says who? That's all. Who's making that rule B? You are. So unmake that fucking rule. I'm here."

"You haven't even had time to…adjust…get on your feet."

"I'll get there," he says.

"I…a kid…it's not like a dog," I say.

"Yeah…they live longer. Longer than you and me if it goes right."

I smile a little. "Don't crack my face," I say.

"B, it don't have to be formal. You get permission, make sure everyone who can pull the plug knows, agrees, then let the kid be."

"You're asking me to do something that requires so much trust," I say.

"Yeah. I can't insist on that, right? You look at me…you can't trust me, we got nothing, right? I been trying to show you something different."

"Not you," I whisper. "Me."

"Oh hell, if that's the problem, fuck that B. Fuck that. There is no one more trustworthy than you. No fucking one."

He says this with such conviction, I feel hot tears burn my eyes.

We're like that when Charlie tries the door, then hits against it. "Bull can't get in," Charlie says.

"That's the idea," Edward says getting up and getting on his underwear and pants while I sit up and pull up my bottoms and pull down my shirt.

Edward doesn't let Charlie in, he goes out. I appreciate that. I need a few minutes.

"You pee bud?" he asks.

I hear Charlie go in the bathroom. He's asking Edward to wait for him.

Edward doesn't answer, but speaks to him about always knocking on someone's door. Then I hear the bathroom door close.

Edward sticks his head in the room. "B, what's goin' down today?"

"Um…I'd just like you here," I say. "I'll talk to Riley…maybe tomorrow I'll set up the bids?"

"Yeah. I'll make some breakfast. Maybe me and little dude will work on the fence."

Yeah, and this feels forced and awkward. He's looking at me like…and I'm barely looking at him.

"Yeah," he says, "we'll…get back to it, right?"

"Well yeah," I say, but I want to cry or something. We haven't solved anything but it's not like it, or Bud, Dude, and all the hundred names Edward has for Charlie, it's not like the kid will go away. It's not even like I want him to.

"B…it's all good, right?"

He means us—are we good?

"Yeah," I say.

He comes in, crosses to me, kisses me. "I don't want to fight," he says.

I swallow. "It's all right," I say.

He keeps looking at me.

I smile at him and push him away.

He leaves slowly and closes the door.

I hear him ask Charlie if he likes pancakes and Charlie says he guesses so. They go down to mess up my kitchen, and I reach for my laptop to start the process on Edward's birth certificate. After that I'll call the guys and make sure everything is rolling and maybe somewhere in there I can tell Edward about the houses.

I mean I own two houses. And I know, I know I'm not sending that kid back to Jasper to get fucked up and turned inside out. Of course I'm not doing that…but fair?

Charlie. Little…Dude…cavity in the back molar…fainter…crier…eyes full of mud and damage. Elbow in my back most of the night, but I don't remember. "Feel my hair," he says.

Are you kidding me?

Tears come, and they turn into…hard tears…and they give way to…old tears…and I hold a pillow over my face because a wail comes…a deep, deep wail, and I don't want Edward and Charlie to hear.

But that's the first time I get the idea. The ludicrous idea.

Well I don't do things half-way.


	42. Chapter 42

Thanks to Fic Sisters for rec'ing this story. Thanks readers and reviewers.

My Ex-con 42

We've eaten the pancakes and now we're all three in the car and Edward is backing out of the driveway so he can drive the four of us the very short distance to the quiet house across the street.

"We're here," I say when he pulls in Mr. Carson's…well my new driveway.

"Here?" Charlie says sticking his head between the seats. He still has syrup around his mouth.

"B?" Edward says cause he's looking at me and I'm not making a move to get out but now I'm looking at this house, and it won't be so easy to go in, you know? I mean…it was his, and the stuff, how do I touch his stuff?

I flip the handle on the door and Charlie opens his door and Bull bolts out and Charlie is yelling because Bull hopped right over him. So Edward is out and telling Bull to come, and he does.

Charlie gets my crutches out of the backseat and I duck just in time to not get one in the face. "Here B," Charlie says.

"Aunt B," I say with a nervous smile, my sinuses still clogged from my cry. Yeah, right out of Mayberry.

I get on my feet and Edward is holding Bull by the collar.

I say, "This way," cause I don't want them to see the backyard yet, so we get on the porch and I hold my hand out for the bundle of keys and leaning on my crutches I get the door open. Edward has been looking at the roof of the porch and walking the porch saying how nice it is.

So the door opens and wow, it hits me, hard. The change. Him gone, I know that, but this…mine? No way.

Edward comes in behind me, Bull speeds around me one way and Edward shouts his name, and Charlie speeds around me the other. I realize they are both going to conduct their own tours so yeah, let that go.

Edward yells at Bull and that one goes back to him and he makes it sit, and it settles down some.

"B, shit, look at all this wood," he says

Yeah. The floors, the woodwork, mantle flanked by bookcases, beams running the ceiling. It rocks.

"You got stuff in here?" he says eagerly stepping away to enter the living room and walk through, examining everything. He knows this is Mr. Carson's house, he knows I brought him here to show him what I've inherited.

"This is mine," I say.

He looks sharply at me. "This…all this…stuff?"

"Stuff and…house," I say nasal-like. I'm smiling but my lip is trembling so I bite on it.

We hear Charlie at the back of the house. He's discovered the pool.

Edward's mouth is open. "That old man…?"

"Mr. Carson," I say, relieved he didn't say, the old pervert.

But in a minute he's thinking it. "Why would he do that?"

I shrug. "I was like a daughter," I say just to clarify.

"Daughter," he repeats. He closes his mouth and nods. He's looking at the beams. "Shit." Then he smiles, rubs the back of his neck. "Congratulations."

I'm nodding. "Yeah."

Charlie is back. "Who lives here?" he asks top of his lungs.

"This is…," I look quickly at Edward, "my house."

"But you live over there with Bull and Edward," he says waving his hand in the direction of my other place.

"That's our other house," I say. It feels wrong to keep saying 'my' and 'mine.'

"Are you rich or something?" he says, a little dazzled by this notion that I have these two houses.

I laugh, but Edward turns away and goes into the next room.

"No," I scoff. "I just…," but it doesn't matter, Charlie is already taking off up the stairs.

I stump along after Edward. He's moved through the formal dining room into the kitchen.

His hands are in his pockets now. He's not touching, just bowed back looking up at the pot rack and the gleaming pots.

I am in the doorway staring at him. He glances at me and a small smile, not a beamer, but a, 'I don't the fuck know what to think about this.'

I want to tell him about the other house, that the debt is gone, but I don't.

He's gone to the back window, the picture window overlooking the yard. He's standing in the great room now. He sees the covered patio, the pool, the outdoor kitchen, fireplace. He keeps his hands in his pockets and he stares out there. Bull breaks him out of it. Bull hits him with his nose and he says, "You want to go back there buddy?" and he goes to the door and lets him out, then seems to make a last minute decision to go out too.

He hasn't really looked at me. The house is unapologetic in its beauty. I go to the big round table and pull out a chair and sit. I can hear Charlie running down the stairs. He's panting when he comes in the kitchen.

"Edward is out back with Bull," I say, and Charlie makes a beeline to join them outside.

That leaves me in the quiet, and I see them through the window, running around, Charlie and Bull. It's a big fenced-in yard. Edward is watching them, or staring at the pool. I know he needs time to…take it in, but still I'm perplexed. I wanted him to…I don't know. He makes me want things for myself like…support maybe. It's not easy for me either. That's what I was trying to tell him earlier…Charlie…the houses. It doesn't mean it's not good, it just means…it's not a quick goodie-goodie cause…you have to step up to it….

After a long time, they come back in. Edward hasn't even seen the upstairs and not all of this floor either. And there's a full basement. There's an outdoor building with riding mower and a boat, a tool shop and another covered patio and picnic tables.

Edward seems happy enough, giving his attention to Charlie, riding on Charlie's excitement. Charlie wants to show him everything, wants to see the basement too but he won't go without Edward.

"You want us going all over?" Edward asks me like I'm some real estate agent.

"Go look," I say like he's crazy.

He snaps on the basement light and Charlie tells him to go first, but Bull goes first, and Edward follows, Charlie at his back. I hear Charlie running all through, discovering the pool table, the ping pong. He's carrying on and I turn up my hearing aids and pool balls are clacking against one another.

In a few minutes Bull emerges, comes to sniff my leg, then he moves off smelling everything. Charlie is next, loud steps for such a skinny little thing, and Edward, lights out and door closed.

"Nice," Edward says, still no eye contact.

Charlie grabs his hand and skirts him right off to look upstairs.

Well enough of this, I get up and get my crutches in place and check the fridge again for any rotting food. I already did this when Mr. Carson went into the nursing hospital, but I do it once more. I'm shutting the big stainless door when Edward is back with Charlie.

"Yeah, is there a mortgage?" Edward says like he's talking to that agent again instead of me.

"Um…no," I say.

"Come on," he says. Charlie is going down the basement stairs again.

"Be careful," Edward calls after him.

I clear my throat, "There're taxes every year, but um…the house is paid for."

He's looking at me, that deep look.

"What?" I say.

"You…knew about this when you left the meeting?"

"Yeah."

"I mean…who does this…gives this…?" he says.

"Mr. Carson, apparently," I say not overly patient.

"B…hold on, okay? I gotta get my mind around this."

"Why can't you just be happy for me?"

"I am," he lies. "I am B. But my God, this is…people don't…you gotta give me a minute here."

"Yeah sure. Take all the time you need." I go to the basement door to call for Charlie.

"Hey, B…," Edward says, but he can't seem to complete a thought to save his soul.

The pool balls are clacking again and Charlie whoops.

"What is this shit Edward? Talk to me."

He's moving this way and that, looking at one thing or another. "I been away for eight years, B, and we both know I had absolutely nothing going for me when I went in, and I don't blame that on anyone but myself, I told you that. I ain't soreheaded and I ain't playing no violin for myself but man…first time and I never thought I'd say this, not in a million years, but first time I'm thinking what the fuck about me and you.

"I went in…," he looks down, he looks up. "I went in I was in love with you, B. This thing we got going looked fast here on the outside, but it wasn't fast for me. You knew it. You knew I loved you, trouble was my love wasn't worth a fuck. And it still ain't. The train done left the station on that." He looks around the beautiful rooms. "No way I can catch it."

My mouth is ready to make a 'w,' as in 'What the hell?' But it doesn't get out in time.

"I mean, you're so fuckin' far out of my league," he says.

I feel like we're still having this morning's argument. I feel like that argument is still getting defined, and now it's more clear. He doesn't know being given so much has pushed me ahead too? He doesn't know I don't want to go without him?

"You want everything that comes with me. You said that Edward."

"I meant Charlie. Your business, I can work in that, that makes sense, and…even your house…I can do the work. But I've got no way into this B. No way in."

"You just came through the door, right? You're in!"

"You know what I mean. You earned this. This is your reward. I don't have any right to this."

"Prison brain," I say mean.

"No," he says.

"Yeah," I say. "Think outside of the cage for a minute."

He laughs, but he's pissed. "Wow B, this guy. This damn guy."

I step away from the door so Charlie doesn't hear. I get closer to Edward but he keeps the island between us. "Don't get stupid on me," I say.

"He had no family? Somebody has to be pissed at this."

"He has a daughter. They weren't close."

"What's she think of this shit?"

"She was well taken care of."

"It enough? My experience the more people got the more they want."

"There's no virtue in being poor, Edward."

"No B. These are the people I ripped off. I've always been a socialist at heart cause I didn't have shit and believe me, I had no fuckin' virtue."

"You want to hear a funny story? You're not the only one who sold his soul to the devil for room and board. That place over on Crow Street where we first met? I used to let the rent collector feel me up so he'd knock something off the rent. All I got for that was a cardboard apartment and cockroaches. Yeah but I changed, just like you. Mr. Carson was a good man, and he taught me a trade, and he taught me how to earn a respectable living and he gave me all this because he chose to do it. He was generous and honorable. And I'm not afraid of something good. Hear me? I'm not afraid to say thank-you and take it."

"Fuck B." He's got tears in his eyes. "You should have told me."

"Why, so you could beat the shit out of him too? Maybe do another eight years?"

"I told you I'd do anything for you."

"Yeah? Fight for me, do time for me, work for me, raise a kid with me…but what…this house is where you get off?"

"I didn't say that."

"What did you say…first time you doubted…us? You mean me."

"I meant me. How do I…take…?"

"You mean receive. How do you find the grace to receive this gift? You say thanks."

"This isn't mine B, it's yours."

"Then marry me. You said I wasn't alone."

"What?"

"I said…let's get married. Mix it all up."

A big grin breaks out, but it's angry too. He lifts a finger, pointing at me like he's found the source of his problem. "You need to calm down," he says, and I don't think I've seen him so thrown before.

Charlie's feet sound loudly on the stairs. We look at the basement doorway and he's on tiptoes turning off the light.

"I got all of them," he says, breathless. "I love this place." He wipes his nose on the tail of his shirt. "Are we gonna live here Aunt B?"


	43. Chapter 43

My Ex-con 43

"Are you any better?" I'm asking, so worried my stomach hurts.

He's hunched over the wheel panting, gasping. It's sixteen degrees outside and he's got sweat on his forehead.

Charlie's head is right there, between the seats. "Is Edward going to die?" he's crying.

"Charlie, quiet," I say.

"I'm," Edward is panting, "not going to die, bud." He reaches for Charlie, squeezes his arm. He nods at me, but he's pale and he puts his hand over his heart. "Fuck," he says like he's gone for a run.

We had to get out of Carson's house ASAP. Edward had fallen against the kitchen table, then he tore off his jacket and ripped at his collar. Like he couldn't breathe. He said he had to get out, and he hadn't even waited for us, he ran through the house and out. I didn't know where I'd find him as I hurried after Charlie who ran after Edward calling his name.

"I'm going to drive you to the hospital," I say.

"No," he pants. "No."

"Yes," Charlie says, "or you'll die like Granma."

"No," I say. "He won't die."

"It's all right," he tells Charlie. "It's flu."

If Charlie wasn't here I'd be taking charge of this, but since he is, I'm limited.

"It'll pass," Edward says still puffing, "it'll go."

He starts the car. He drives down to my house, well my other house, really slowly. I don't take my eyes off of him, can't look anywhere else.

"You had this before?" I say.

"Yeah," he says, holding his hand up like I threw something.

"What is it?" Charlie says.

"Flu, I said," Edward snaps.

Charlie flops back and folds his arms. He's crying in earnest now.

We get home and Edward gets out, right away. He leans on the car, heels of his hands over his eyes.

Charlie is out next, the dog.

I struggle out and I'm getting my crutches in place.

"Are you coming in?" I say to Edward because he's not moving.

"In a minute," he says tersely, eyes still covered.

"What's the matter with Edward?" Charlie asks me teary and snotty.

"C'mon," I say. "It's just flu. He needs the air."

So we go in, and Bull runs into his dishes, and I drop my keys and stump over to the side window so I can see Edward but he's already moved off and left some tracks in the light snow headed for the backyard.

So I go to move to the backdoor and almost trip over Charlie.

"Can I go find him?" he says.

"I think we need to leave him alone," I say.

"I don't want to," he says, wiping his nose down his sleeve.

"Me neither," I say and pretty soon Charlie and I are standing at the backdoor looking toward the carriage house. New light snow is starting to fall and there's a light on back there.

"Let's give him a while," I say, as much to myself as Charlie.

Edward has scared me shitless. I thought he was solid, I thought I could push and he'd push back and we'd figure it out, like this morning. Like always.

But I hit something and it gave way in my hands and I don't know if I can to put it back together.

"What if he dies?" Charlie says mournfully, really not helping my mood.

"Charlie, he's not Granma. He's young and strong, you got it?" It would sound more convincing if my voice hadn't waffled.

"Yes," he says thinly, his skinny arm coming around me.

"We'll give him fifteen minutes," I say and I put my arm around him, too.


	44. Chapter 44

My Ex-con 44

"Please, please, please," Charlie is saying to me, hands clasped under his chin.

"All right," I say. "I'll go." Meaning I'll make the long trek on my crutches, or I could just drive back to the alley. Anyway before I can figure this, I'm on my way to the front door and I hear the back door open and I turn and I see Bull's ass and tail jumping down into the yard, and out in front, Charlie, arms straight at his sides, running through the snow.

I'd yell at them to come back, but—futile. I've got to hand it to Charlie, he's facing his Big Foot about now cause I know gone-to-that-great-home-in-the-sky Granma is fresh in his mind.

He gets to the carriage house and in he goes, Bull close behind. I've stumped back to the door, and I'm looking and Charlie appears, his arms held up like someone made a touchdown. "He's alive," he shouts. Then he does a victory jump and goes back in.


	45. Chapter 45

Happy belated Birthday Dear Sunflower Fran

Dear Judge Judy Moody I hope this clears me.

Dear Dr. G.W., free health care in NY? Dang, won't help me, but thanks.

My Ex-con 45

"For real?" I'm muttering. I took the lasagna out an hour ago and they are still back there and not a peep out of them, not even the dog.

I'm mad. Last I've seen Edward he's gasping for breath, won't even look at me.

I asked him to marry me for God sakes.

And for three empty hours nothing.

Heck with him. Heck with them. Maybe I'm tired. I'm not even supposed to be standing like this. I'm supposed to have my foot propped up, not that anyone cares about me. I could have gone to work today, I should have.

Oh I'm not alone anymore, oh I forgot all about that. Sure as hell feels alone, but I like alone. This…it's not as good as alone, not even close.

I'm thinking all this when I see their approach. Edward is carrying Charlie on his shoulders. Charlie is sitting up there wrapped around Edward like a giant muffler—with a hood.

For real?

I hurry away from the door and get the salad out of the refrigerator and I'm looking for the dressings in the fridge door, Italian and Ranch for the kid.

I put this on the table in the center of the dishes I've set out. It looks nice, not that anyone deserves it.

Then the back door opens, and there they are, and Edward turns around and Charlie is very near floor level and he scrambles off of Edward and into the kitchen. Then Edward climbs in, then the dog leaps in behind him.

They are dirty. Edward is wiping his feet and he glances at me. "Hi B."

I say 'hi' but no sound comes out.

"Wow," Charlie says looking at everything. "Why is it so nice?" he says. "What did you cook?"

I take the foil off the lasagna and they are right there.

"Oh man," Edward says.

"What is it?" Charlie says.

"Italian. You like Italian?"

"Like pizza?" Charlie says.

"Kind of. More like spaghetti," I say.

"What's that?" Charlie asks pointing at the foil wrapped bread.

"Garlic bread," I say trying to keep my voice neutral, not pissed or anything.

"I want some," he says.

"Go up and wash, and do it right," Edward says.

"You too?"

"I'll be right there," Edward says.

"Is the light on?" Charlie asks.

"Come on," Edward says. As he passes me, he stops to plant a kiss on the back of my head. Then he takes Charlie up.

That kiss, I hold onto the counter and feel tears burning. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying not to shake. I will myself to stillness as I hear their muffled steps above me, and water moving along the pipes.

I'm not going to lose him. He's with me, he's still with me.

I pull myself together and get the food on the table. Holy shit I feel so awkward about all this. I mean, what do I say?

So here they come and I busy myself with getting the bread in a basket lined with a towel. I set that on the table too.

They come in then, Charlie first in his chair, Edward right after.

"It smells good," Charlie says. Edward has brushed Charlie's hair and he's wearing a clean shirt. "I want that," Charlie says meaning the bread.

"Wow B," Edward says, "you did all this?"

Well who else some little Italian elves? But I see he's still pale, blue under the eyes. He smiles at me and I look away spastic. There's weariness in his eyes. Doesn't he know how much I love him?

"What were you doing back there so long?" I say, but it doesn't sound as casual as I mean it to. It's like I just accused them of something.

"It's a surprise," Charlie says. "We can't tell you." He takes a big bite of his garlic bread.

"Really?" I say to Edward, trying to find a way to get over this embarrassed feeling.

He smiles a little. "Have to wait and see," he says.

I'm a little annoyed. Or more than a little. It's bad enough they cut me out.

I cut into the lasagna and stand to serve Edward the first piece. Then I cut a smaller piece for Charlie. Then I cut the smallest piece of all for myself.

Edward gives Charlie a forkful of salad then takes a bigger scoop for himself, and next he puts some on my plate.

"Thanks," I say softly.

"Thanks for all this B," he says back.

"It's okay," I say.

"You tell B thanks?" Edward says to Charlie.

"Thank you," he says loudly, his mouth filled with bread. Yeah, no talking with your mouth full, no feeding the dog at the table, which he's already done with his breadcrust, say thank you when served and…don't burp like you just did. We definitely have our work cut out with Charlie, but he seems the easiest one to understand at present.

"Oh B," Edward says when he swallows his first bite of lasagna.

"It's good," Charlie says taking a careful bite of the melted cheese and avoiding the sausage.

Whatever happened to Edward earlier, he seems able to eat. Maybe not with his usual gusto, but he's trying.

He's trying. I see that.

"Edward," I say, "you feeling better?"

"He threw up," Charlie announces.

"Bud," Edward says, but he laughs a little.

"You think it's flu? I mean…you don't have to eat that," I say.

"Yeah," he says looking at Charlie. "I'm better."

I'm nodding. The food is good, but I'm really not hungry.

"What kind of food did your Granma make Charlie?" I ask.

"Meals on wheels," he says.

Edward and I look at each other. "Did Granma cook?" I say.

"I don't know. Mr. Canady brought meals on wheels and then he called the school," he says in a mocking voice.

"He see you home a lot?" I ask.

"Yeah," Charlie says. He's eating all the cheese out of his piece of lasagna. "They got sloppy Joe at school."

"That was my favorite subject too, Bud," Edward says and a smile at me.

After our late lunch, one in which I have to wrap leftovers on my plate and Edward's for the first time, I talk some on the phone with Artie, going over how to bill the job, making sure I've got everything. We talk about the next job and I let him know about the reservations and we go over the order to make sure I've got all the supplies ordered correctly.

By the time I'm done with that, Edward has sent Charlie back inside for the night as the sun has gone down and it's too cold for him to be out, even with my cast off winter clothing and the heater in the carriage house.

I feel how cold his nose is. "We were fixing the fence," he says. Then hand over mouth. "I'm not supposed to tell."

"It's okay," I say. I heard them out there all afternoon. I tell him where the cookies are and he goes and gets them and he drops his jacket. I tell him to put it on the chair in the hall and take off his shoes. He comes in the living room then and I pat the narrow space of couch beside me and he climbs up and I share my afghan.

I switch over to Netflix on my laptop, more specifically Netflix for kids and I let him pick out a show and we eat cookies and watch.

"Aunt B," he says after a while, "are you rich?"

"What does Edward say?" I ask slyly.

"He said I shouldn't worry about it. Are you…rich?"

I get it. He wants to be proud.

"I'm comfortable. I still have to work hard," I say. "How's that?"

"That mean rich?"

"I have these two houses. The big house we were at earlier, that was given to me by a man who was like a father. He was my friend and when he died he wanted me to have it. So I have a lot of stuff now, and I'm very grateful. But that means a lot of responsibility too."

"Can we live in that big house?"

"What's wrong with this one?"

"It doesn't have a swimming pool and the table with balls."

"Well we're here for now. I don't know yet." I just see Edward practically running out of there.

"When I get big can I live in the house with the swimming pool?"

I laugh. But then I don't. I have a home I love. And now I have another home I love. I can't imagine moving from my house here. But I've inherited the only other house I'd consider leaving it for. Thing is, Mr. Carson's house is too big for one person. He lived there alone, but before he got sick he made it a place where people were welcomed. He held so many events there, especially for the people from New Hope. He practically turned it into a community center. His generosity was endless. If ever anyone got a brass band when they arrived at the Pearly Gates, well he surely must have.

"You're my nephew," I say.

"You're Jasper's sister," he says as if someone has explained it carefully.

"That means we're family, you and me."

"You're my aunt. Aunt B."

"That's right." We high-five.

"I want to stay with you and Edward. And Bull."

Oh Lord. "I know. We talked about that, remember?"

He moves so quickly the laptop falls backwards on my legs.

"I don't want to leave."

"Hey Charlie, Charlie, listen to me. I'm going to figure out something for all of us, okay? Now you have to give me some time to do that. Meanwhile, I'm looking out for you, whatever that means."

"I don't want to go to that school."

"You have to go to school."

"I don't like that place."

"It's a fine place. Remember the library and the fish? I'll bet they serve sloppy Joe."

"I don't care. I hate that place."

"Hey Bud?" It's Edward. I hadn't heard him come in which is saying a lot because Bull is not stealth.

"Let's go up and get you in the bath and then we'll make a fire if that's okay with B."

"But we haven't showed her," Charlie says.

"It's pretty dark," Edward says. "Do you feel like looking out the dining room window?" Edward asks me.

"I guess," I say.

"C'mon," Charlie says. He waits with his hands bunched again, and he's doing a little hop.

I get on my feet and crutches in place I stump over to the window where Edward holds back the curtains. There at the side of the house, barely visible in the moonlight, is a double wooden gate they've made to close off the yard. It looks nice. I'm pretty impressed, but even still I want to cry. I want to cry all the time tonight.

Charlie's clapping his hands. "We made it. We made it."

"I'm so surprised," I say, looking at Charlie. He's a real goof, and so proud.

"I helped," he says, "But Edward made it. I used the hammer."

"Wow Charlie I didn't know my nephew was a carpenter."

"I ain't a carpenter," he says, then crosses his eyes and falls on the floor. Bull takes over then, dropping onto his stomach his tail beating the floor. He belly-crawls to Charlie and licks his face and Charlie squeals, allowing him to do it a couple more times.

Edward is right beside me, smiling at me.

"Nice," I say.

"Thanks," he says. "Had lots of help."

So Edward takes Charlie up to give him his bath.

I want to make hot chocolate, but I don't have any energy, and that's not like me, but what a day. I didn't do squat, but I'm more tired than when I do all kinds of stuff. I'm worn out.

So I go back to the couch and pretty soon Charlie comes down first as Edward is still cleaning up, Charlie says, and he's pretty impressed with his hair again, and I have to feel it and he's telling me I must have been pretty surprised over that gate.

I'm telling him I love that gate and he's asking if we can watch something else and I let him sort through some shows and he picks out Cars.

We're ten minutes in when Edward comes down and I tell Charlie to get Edward to make us popcorn and hot chocolate and he does that, begs like he can, and Edward agrees that he will as soon as he gets the fire going.

Charlie is eager to watch that process and help if he can. They get the fire going pretty quickly, and it's in the kitchen then to make snacks, and I'm sitting up now, my foot propped on the coffee table so they can sit either side of me. They bring in the food and we all three watch the movie Cars.

Try as he might Charlie falls asleep at the end, and Edward carries him up and I follow on my own. I get in the bathroom to wash up and when I come out, ready for bed, I look in on Charlie and he's asleep, but Edward is in there too, stretched out in the chair by Charlie's bed.

He's resting his head on his hand, but he's looking at me.

I don't say anything, mostly because he caught me off-guard. I go in my room, to my bed.

Bull drops in the hall and Edward stops in my doorway. "B, you want to be alone?" he says.

"Do you?" I ask.

He shakes his head like he's waiting on me.

"Do what you want," I say. He's got a bad case of prisoner mind. I'm not going to be the new 'boss,' on his down time.

He looks at me for a minute, but I get my foot propped up and settle in. "Could you get that light?" I say.

He snaps my light, but he's still standing there. I close my eyes, but I'm listening and hoping he figures something out because I might die if he doesn't get in this bed and hold me.

He closes my door and I hear his steps then, crossing to me. He goes around my bed and gets in on the other side, like always. He settles in but he stays on his half. My eyes are opened, my back is to him, and I can barely take a deep breath.

It's like he gets it right again when he turns toward me and moves closer and puts his arm around me. "Can I do this B?"

I let out a breath then. "If you want to," I say like I haven't noticed he can't make a decision to save his soul.

"I want to," he says quietly.

All the hurt I feel over this day comes on me then. And the cry-baby tears are right there. God I'm disgusting, but I'm a wreck.

"I love you B," he says.

I'm keeping really quiet, but he figures it out and feels my cheek, and he groans, and he's kissing on me then and telling me he's so sorry.

I can't speak without the boo-hooing getting worse, but it means so much that I can feel his regret. I realize he couldn't help what happened at Mr. Carson's. I wanted him to be happy, well ecstatic would have been nice. Thing of it was, I was proud, and I wanted him to be, proud and happy, but he about fell apart instead. The house and me jumping the gun asking him to marry me. God I could die cause I gave him one hundred percent, my best, I laid it out, and it hurt him.

"What was it?" I get out. "What happened to you?"

"It just hit me," he says.

"It happened before," I say.

"Something like it first night they locked me in federal."

I turn on my back. I don't care if he sees me or not. "The thought of marrying me…did you hear that door clang shut again?"

"No."

"You had to run out and you were panting and sweating."

"I got sick B. What can I say?"

"Well I'm hurt," I say.

"You want me in the other room?"

"No."

He's got two arms around me and he's about squeezing the stuffing out of me. "You giving up on me B?"

"No," I say.

"Don't give up on me B. Don't give up on me."

"I won't," I say. "I'd never give up on you."

"Don't ever give up on me," he's saying like I haven't just said I never would.

"Stop it," I whisper, my hand gripping his arm. I'm so close to him, my face so close to his, my hands move to his face. "I'll never give up on you," I say.

He quiets then. He hears me.

I slowly press my lips to his and he groans and crushes me with new strength, his mouth moving on mine. "B," he's saying

I quiet him down, my hands moving to his shoulders and I say, "Lie back here, lie still." And I move on him then, on top of him, my body aching for his, for some reassurance he's all right. I can't fix his head, but I can make him feel good. I kiss him all over as I move down him, and I get to where he's hard I pull his pants down, so he's naked and I can take him then, so warm and ready in my mouth, and I never lovingly perfected this, but I know this is something powerful if you choose it, and I never did, but I do with him. I want him to understand I'm not giving up, this is no casual thing, but my gift, and I put love in it as I take him in, I love him and I want him to know, he wants to discourage me it will take more than some fit to shake me off.

He's all untied now, hissing noises and hands in my hair, running down to my shoulders. I have to push him down a couple of times as I dedicate myself to this act that brings him to a broken release, a sound like a wrenched something, a give over from deep in, "God, B, oh God."

His arms then, mine encircle his for once. I hold him there and he sleeps in my embrace.

Time passes, but I don't feel it chopping itself into minutes and hours. It's the bed we float on, the air we breathe. Fear is always so damn short-sighted. What I know? His dark cloud can't last in this light we make together.

He longed to care for someone, he said. Well so did I. I had responsibility, I grew that the whole time he was away. But nothing got this close.

No one knows how I am inside once I commit. No one could guess how deep it goes with me. I said it was fiery in there. I think Mr. Carson is the only one who suspected. That's why he trusted me, trusts me now from the grave. He didn't give me a house, his daughter got his assets. He gave me a legacy. His whole life was about helping others. I get the message loud and clear.

I listen to my life.


	46. Chapter 46

My Ex-con 46

Bull pokes me first and Edward wakes too. It's nearly ten. I guess he's decided it's enough slumming around.

All three of us have slept late, four counting the dog alarm clock.

During the night I have awakened two or three times, checked the clock, checked Edward, kissed the top of his head lying against my shoulder, and fallen back to sleep. It's as if the day before has taken its toll. It has cost us.

"What time is it?" Edward says now.

I have held him all night and my arms are stiff as I let him go.

He is up first, looking at me as he finds his shirt. "I really slept, B," he says. "You all right?"

Before I speak he is back to kiss me.

"I'm good," I say. He kisses me again.

Then he's taking the dog down the stairs. He is back quickly and I realize the new gate must have allowed him to let Bull in the now fenced-in yard.

He goes straight in the bathroom and he's in there cleaning up for the day. Riley is coming a little after twelve to take Edward to bid two very important jobs. But I'm conflicted. He built the gates, but is he steady enough, feeling well enough to go out on his own?

It's only a foot—this touchy thing on the end of my leg. I can just as easily have Riley drive me.

But I don't know what to tell him. I don't want to demote him, or show a lack of trust, but maybe I feel one—some kind of lack—in him-in me? Maybe I do.

Edward is fresh out of prison, and I haven't been around him for eight years. Did he develop this weirdness in there? He said it happened that first night. Did it happen other times? I could understand. I mean, I'm not sure I could keep my wits if I were locked up. So what's the damage? That's the thing. And I've seen him more than anyone since he's out. So what am I seeing?

He stays close to me, as if I'm his guide. But around here, he's branching out. The gate. He made that and it seemed to make him better.

He is very new at seeing himself in the free-world. He's been told what to do for eight years.

Mr. Carson used to tell me about patience. It means surrender. Well, I'm waiting on Edward now. I'll have to see about Charlie with a live-in ex-con boyfriend over a husband. It would have made it better for all of us if Edward had been able to say yes and conceive of being tied to me for life.

But he's in the way of that happening now. Patience.

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"I called Riley. You and me are going instead," I tell him as I buckle my belt.

"You have to stay off that foot."

"I know that. I'm off of it."

"But it should be propped."

"Thing is, I like to do the bids myself. I want to teach you."

He stares at me. "B, that thing yesterday…."

"That's not it," I cut him off. "It's not a lack of trust. It's what I just said." I think that's true. Putting too much on him too soon doesn't work. I'm trying to pull back a little, take it slow. I'm trying to give him a chance to keep succeeding. That's how Mr. Carson did it with me. "Help someone succeed," he used to say.

"What are we going to do with Charlie?" Edward says.

He's at the table drinking the milk from his cereal. I see the bowl covering his face and his little throat working while he legs swing from the kitchen chair.

"We'll take him," I say.

A few minutes before I'd asked him what he liked to eat from Meals on Wheels. He said gravy bread. Granma saved it for him. A piece of bread was under the meatloaf is my best guess. I'm working on getting a piece of what his life has been like. Lots of old lady soap operas and not a lot of outside play. Mostly he was in with Granma. He had to take a bus to school and she couldn't walk him to the stop, so I cringe to think what that was like. I know he didn't come from a great neighborhood. I can just picture him hiding in the hall and telling her he missed the bus. There probably wasn't much she could do about it.

So he's been used to getting his way. That makes three of us, and possibly Bull. Well Edward's had prison and I've had real life, Bull ran away from something, roadkill on the highway, and Charlie, he has us now.

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We are at Chuckie Cheese's and I'm watching Edward with Charlie, helping that one not to be afraid of the place. I sit here with my foot propped on a chair and watch them in all the flashing lights and kids running around, but I only see them, Edward speaking in Charlie's ear, telling him good things I know, and Charlie throws the ball then and it goes in the ring and Edward claps and then Charlie does too, he's catching on, he's learning how to celebrate himself.

He looks over his shoulder to see if I'm watching and I give him a thumbs up. Edward looks too, and we smile.

It turns me on when Edward gets it right, I'm not going to lie. I'm thirty years old and I want this, I realize that now, were they to leave me, this life that held me so carefully, in my own globe, snow falling down on the house I loved, me with a brush in my hand covering the sins of the world, making it fresh and pure, I couldn't go back now in two short weeks I couldn't go back, I don't want it back there.

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We've had a day. It was the three of us that went to the sites and I prepared two more bids. Charlie stayed quiet, waiting in the car with Edward for the first one, then wanted to go in the second time and promised to be a good boy, and he was.

I figured I was likely to get this job. The foreman that managed these properties used me and a competitor for most of his work. Sometimes he kept both of us busy. So I shook Aro's hand, and he held mine a little longer than he should, and made over my crutches, offered to kiss my boo-boo, make it better, but he was out-going like that, and I was used to this kind of crap, it was just a game.

Aro was good looking in a very manicured way. There were two ex-wives, a daughter. He wore a suit to these meetings and he was always looking for the next score.

He wasn't one to get involved in manual labor. He didn't have to be. He flirted around, because I was female and he saw flirting as his duty.

I introduce him to Edward and Charlie, my nephew.

"This your brother?" he asks about Edward.

"No. Edward works for me." I say this in front of Edward

"No shit?" he says. "Must be new."

"He's usually out-of-town," I say like Edward can't speak for himself.

I glance briefly at Edward and his face might be considered non-committal, but not his eyes. If you know him like I do, he's already hating on Aro.

"When you gonna have a drink with me," Aro says next, not out of Edward's hearing.

Edward has been walking around with Charlie, letting him pull him by the hand, but he stops now, plants his boots kind of wide-legged, Charlie still pulling on him and Edward says Charlie's name and Charlie stops.

"Got a boyfriend yet?" Aro says. He loves to talk like this.

"Sure," I say and his eyes shoot to my ring finger.

"No way," he scoffs. "You gonna break my heart?" Then to Edward, "You believe a woman like this doesn't date?"

Without waiting for an answer Aro says, "Who the hell is the lucky asshole?"

I laugh, Edward in my periphery. "You sure you want to use a satin finish in the bathrooms?"

"Yeah, it's up high and we want a pearl finish to go with the glaze on the tile," he says. Then he follows me as I stump along to the bathroom to see what he's talking about.

"How long you been dating this guy? I only saw you a month ago and you were still living like a nun."

I ignore him and get in the small bathroom and I'm looking up at the drywall finish and I feel a touch on my waist.

"You're off the market? Don't do me like this. Where'd you meet this guy? It is a guy, right? Those rumors…."

I move quick. I don't allow touching if I can help it. I'm here to bid a job, not get felt up. "You're so full of shit," I say.

He laughs, hand splayed on chest. "You're hurtin' me now."

"Yeah okay on this." I move past him and he keeps it small.

Edward is in the hall holding Charlie's hand and looking at me.

"You ready to figure this up B?" Edward says. I'm thinking he surely wouldn't…well back in the day he sure as hell would have caused trouble.

"Not yet," I say, and I say it firm, like back off.

Edward moves against the wall, pulls Charlie there and he's looking at me and I glance over my shoulder and he's looking at Aro.

Aro laughs and ruffles Charlie's hair and Charlie pulls back and glares.

"Chill out little man," Aro says.

Aro looks at Edward and the laughter leaves him.

"What's with Igor?" he says to me when we're back in the living room.

I ignore that too.

"Yeah, give me a minute to figure this," I say. I figure everything on my I-pad these days.

"Sure Miss Swan, take your time and I'll just sit by the window and enjoy the view." Eyebrows up and down a few times and he's laughing as he sits on the sill but he's looking at me.

"Fuck man," Edward says to Aro.

"Fuck you man," Aro says back.

"Can we go?" Charlie whines.

"Edward," I say sharply. I'm laying my stuff on the kitchen counter that separates the living room from the kitchen. "Let's get this figured."

"I'm the boyfriend," Edward says to Aro.

Aro looks to me. "That right Bella?"

"Yeah," Edward says same time I say, "What's that got…to do with getting this figured?"

"Bella knows we're cool," Aro says, the good nature turning into pissed off a little as he gets a cigarette in his mouth and lights it.

"He's my foreman," I say.

"Oh, Riley know that?" Aro says big grin.

"Aro," I say, "let me figure this."

I want to ask Edward to take Charlie out to the car, but if I do that he'll feel dismissed. So I go ahead and try to incorporate him in the process of figuring, like I'd planned.

Edward places himself other side of the counter and blocks out Aro.

"Come around here," I say. I can't show him how to figure if he's not even looking at the screen and I'm not putting my back to Aro. So Edward rounds the counter and steps near me and Charlie sighs and slides to the floor. I'm going over everything, muttering to Edward as I enter my calculations. I need to take a better look at this kitchen, but yeah I've done so many of these, over and over again some of them, but this one has some real cuts and angles. I generally get around three hundred for an average room and that without much trim. Aro knows my ballpark which is why he always calls me. I'm fair but I'm not the cheapest. You get what you pay for, that's true and that's what I tell smart-asses like him. Only reason he gets a break is I'm in an independent union. It limits where I can go, but there's plenty of work on the edges.

So I'm figuring it out and two grand a unit, twelve units, twenty-four, smack on another two grand for those little surprises, and take back five hundred because this outfit uses me all the time, "Twenty-five fifty," I say.

Aro feigns a rock to the stomach. He uses the sounds even.

"Breaking my balls like always, Swan," he says.

It's not his money. And I'll get it done right. But he likes to put me through it everytime. He carries on a little bit, then we sign one another's contracts and we talk dates.

He shakes my hand again, holds it with both his. "You come work for me lose the attitude," he says to Edward.

Edward says, "I have to let you put your hands on me too?"

Aro looks at me. "What the hell's wrong with this guy?"

"Nothing. Forget it," I say. To Edward, "Let's go."

"See you kiddo," Aro says. Charlie has his head on Edward's shoulder half-asleep.

"Playa," Edward says staring at Aro where he stands talking on his cell-phone once we're in the car backing out.

"Edward, am I going to be able to let you come here and work for him? He won't be here all the time but he'll come in and ride your ass now and then, believe me. Do I have to worry about that?

Edward lights a cigarette and lowers the window, "You worried about me B?"

I look in the rearview and Charlie is drowsy in the back. "I'm hungry," he says.

"In there I was. You can't let someone like that set you off."

"You see me get set off? You know I could have hurt him, right? You see me lay hands on him?"

"Don't give me your…," I look back at Charlie. I don't want to fight in front of him. "I just didn't know for a minute. It would only take once."

"You can't say who I am?" He takes in a big breath.

"Why would I tell him who you are? He's nothing to me." Maybe I finally have a point with this hard headed man.

"You said that…about getting hitched, you and me. Maybe you don't know how I feel."

I'm staring at him. I sure never meant to talk about this now.

"I figure once I get…once I get where I need to," I see the pissed off rolled back now, and it's clear eyes. It always gets me deep when I see this look, "I'll lay it out then…to you. That work for you too, B?"

I look at Aro and he's got his back to us, still on the phone. I'm biting my lip. I put the car in gear and back out.

"B? You gonna answer," he says.

I put it in drive and look at him. "You see me going anyplace in the meantime?" I say.

He takes a drag of his cigarette, and I can see he's satisfied. And I'll take this shit-stirring bastard over that trembling, sweating puker any damn day. This guy…well bring it on.

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"Hoongry," Charlie says after we've driven a while.

"We have one more stop first," I say. Friday night traffic starts early and we're already crawling along.

I tell Edward, "We've got to stop at the four-family." That's where Jasper works. I want him to see Charlie and I've got his check and Riley's too.

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Charlie is shy with his dad, pouty, wanting Edward to hold him, but Edward won't. I doubt anyone has ever held Charlie much, especially a man and Charlie is glad to let Edward haul his little ass around but now Edward wants him to look at his old man.

Edward tells Charlie to say hello to Jasper, and when he won't do it, Edward ignores him and walks around. Charlie runs to him soon as he is back in the room and then he says hi to Jasper.

Jasper says, "Hi buddy," and asks Charlie if he wants to help him put some paint on the wall and Jasper holds over Charlie's hand while they brush a couple of strokes.

Then Charlie goes right back to Edward's leg in case Jasper tries to kidnap him I guess.

So we leave there with Jasper promising to come see Charlie over the weekend. Then before I can leave he gets me alone and pours out how Alice doesn't want to mother someone else's kid, and their relationship is hanging by a thread she's so damn mad. "She's going to leave me, B," he says.

"Charlie's all right with me," I say. Well, there it is. I say it.

I feel the lift in him.

"Got any more out there I don't know about?" I snap. I don't mean it that way, but I sure as hell do, too.

"Come on Bella. I didn't know, I swear I didn't. I can't lose Alice, B. You know I can't."

Truth is, I can't lose her. She is both mother and lover to him. But she's the one who stabilizes him, like it or not, Alice is the wind beneath his fucking tattered wings. If she is saying no to Charlie, that is because his father leaves no room for a child. I don't blame Alice. She is Jasper-tired, and no one knows the heaviness of that mantle better than me.

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After the pizza place we head off to Wal-Mart. It is time to do the shopping again. "Wait 'til you see this place," Edward tells Charlie as we walk in.

And believe it or not, Charlie might be the only other person in a hundred-mile radius that is just as bewildered as Edward to see this place in its super-glory.

So Edward and Charlie insist I get in the powered chair for handi-caps, and sake of argument, I do. Then we pass the gauntlet of potato chips and taco chips and bird seed and garden hoses lined up to greet us. And Charlie is walking with Edward, his eyes big as he takes it all in. Since I'm the one leading this wagon-train I head my chair in search for the section where one can get a little boy some underwear and socks and pajamas and jeans and t-shirts and then some shoes.

We have a lot to do.


	47. Chapter 47

Thanks readers.

My Ex-con 47

Third Saturday of the month is my shift at New Hope. This is the church, the lighthouse that saved my ass when growing up, the one with the second-hand everything we lived out of except for what Jasper and later Edward stole. New Hope is a church with a pulse: food pantry, free lunch, endless community projects like the one where I met Mr. Carson, advice on every program out there, a lending library, counselors if you're being hit, evicted, cheated, or you've been hit, evicted, cheated. Direction for job training , finances, legal problems, and oh yeah, church if you want it, but church and need and help are all wrapped up in burlap and ashes. It's dirty Christianity, no stately white pillars but the concrete and grit under the feet of this community.

This was Carson's old haunt, the place he went to in the city to do something that mattered. He by-passed the churches around us and went right into the neighborhood, the one where Jasper and me lived after Pat bailed, the one I never quite left and Jasper never quite joined.

The food pantry there and the musty used stuff were my Wal-Mart in those days. Now I do my stint there and I, the taker, become the giver. Law of subtraction—I get new, I get rid. Bring it in, but take it out. Can't take it with you, wouldn't want to anyway…it's different up there so recycle, recycle, recycle and give a good damn for your neighbor.

With two houses, you can imagine how it weighs on me. Law of subtraction. I'll figure it out.

I've told Edward and Charlie, "Third Saturday of the month I work at the church."

"What is it?" Charlie says.

"Lots of stuff," I say. "You'll like it."

"New Hope," Edward repeats, the way he might say, 'no shit,' or something like that. "Jasper said you still played in that sandbox, only he said cat pan," Edward says.

"Yeah he's a real poet. You don't have to go," I say.

"You want me to go?" he says.

"Yes," I say. I know this is what he needs. He won't be judged there, and he'll remember there are people worse off, or people who came out of prison like him and did all right. I don't mean to use the place for my own ends, but I get more than I give…when I give. It works that way. That's it.

So Friday night we are beat by the time we get home and Charlie wants to draw with the new paper and crayons I got him and Edward says in the morning. Charlie lays his new things in his room, takes them out of the bags, his clothes, and puts them on the dresser all nice and neat. He stacks his paper and things there.

So he gets washed up, then wears his new underpants and his pajamas and he gets in bed and Edward does the sweetest thing, he clips Charlie's toenails. One had been hurting him when he tried on shoes, and he tried to sit right there in Walmart and bite it off, and Edward told him not to do that, we'd cut it when we got home, and just that hit me, the way we called the same place home, just that.

I tell Charlie goodnight and he asks Edward to sit in his chair again, and Edward says for ten minutes he will. So he sits in there and I stand outside the door and listen a minute, and Charlie wants to talk about some of the games they played at the pizza place. Then he tells Edward he doesn't want to go to that school and Edward says we all have to do something that's tough, but it's good too. Charlie isn't very appeased but he gets quiet.

I hop into the bathroom and quietly close the door. We all have to do something that's tough. Yeah. I get a bath and wash my hair and I'm in bed thirty minutes later. Edward is on a run with Bull, and I try not to watch the clock worried he'll beat curfew.

I wake up again when he's getting in bed.

"Hey," I say.

"Yeah," he says, his arms coming around me, and him holding me. I have my back to him, but it feels so right when he surrounds me.

He takes my hand, kisses it and guides it between my legs, his hand over. "You mine B?"

I know what this is, just good old fashioned need-to-know. "Yes," I say as he presses my hand between his and myself.

His other hand is rubbing over my breasts. "Remember what I told you, how I'd think of you in that cell, how I'd make love to every part of you?"

"My ear?" I say because he's breathing there, and kissing me with his lips so hot, so soft and real.

"Every part B," he whispers. He moves my hair out of the way and his lips on my neck, well good thing I'm lying down or I'd keel over.

"B," he's saying, my shirt pulled up. "I'd touch you here," he says, his hand on my neck now and it dragging down to my breasts. He knows how to squeeze, pinch just enough, suck until I'm blind and gasping. I hold one for him so he'll keep taking it in, and he's talking some and I strain to hear every word, he's telling me that's right, hold it for me, that's right.

He's sucking on my fingers, then two of his fingers are in my mouth, then my hand is there again, between my legs, and he's kissing me down there over my fingers. He's rubbing my legs and my good foot, and he's between my legs and up the leg of my shorts, and underwear pulled aside, a little rip, he's slowly in me and I'm so wet and ready and his flesh fills me and goes deeper and he's shaking the whole bed he's working so hard and when I come apart it's a huge convulsion, that's what it feels like, and suspension, and I'm aware, so aware that he's with me, and it's gasping and holding on, it's the highest soaring high…est…Edward Cullen is in my veins.

1111111111

The pastor from New Hope—Emmett McCarty, biker, bandana, earrings, leather vest with patches and his boy's club, big, oh and yeah black, or brown to be more accurate, African. But American. Scary looking, love in the middle like the nougat center, just love. But pissed off too, about a lot of things.

Right now it's corn. We're out of corn and he can't find Rosie.

Rosie. Blondie. Stacked. Tatooed. Tough. Love. Closet smoker. Of legal things. These days. One kid, girl, Susie, eight going on twelve. Milk in the coffee like Charlie. Right now Susie is teaching him the ropes, how to go crazy around here, all the nooks and crannies. He's running wild, but she'll watch him.

"Stay out of the baptistry," I warn him. He loved that pool at Mr. Carson's, and many have been dunked for Jesus there, but the baptistery here, though portable, is deep enough for a granma raised apartment dweller who's never been in anything deeper than a bathtub to drown in.

We are in the kitchen and it's fish today for Lent and all, though no one keeps it, or knows what it is, but there's fish anyway, fried up cod, and potato salad and corn and green beans, those two miserable staples that come out of big cans where they've been cooked and salted into something else. But Rose appears in the kitchen with a can on each hip.

"Save that yelling for the city counsel meeting," Rosie says to her husband.

"I'm not yelling," Emmett yells as he takes those cans and they are soon being opened, drained and heated to near boiling, then put on the line to keep that line moving as folks shuffle through. They'll serve three hundred for lunch, that many easy in a couple of hours.

And while they go through Emmett is talking to each one, finding out where they've been or how they've been, directing them here or there, do this or that.

After I serve lunch and make sure Charlie sat with Susie long enough to eat some corn at least, I'm back in the thrift shop. I haven't seen Edward in a while. He's working on the furnace, so I haven't seen him since.

But Emmett went for Edward right off, a handshake only cons would understand, or thugs, a shake with some steps, quick and they kind of hugged and Emmett asked him how long he'd been out and they talked. That Emmett, did I say he was an ex-con? No, but Emmett said, "Welcome inmate," or something like that and I didn't see Edward for a while until he came and told me he was going to look at the furnace and I said, "You know how to fix a furnace?" and he said yes.

So he brings in the boxes I had in the van, leftover paint mostly and some household, and now I'm arranging those into the inventory. Well Edward kisses me before he takes off and Rosie is on it, on me about Edward and he's hot, she says and I say we're living in sin and she says it might require a home visit, but damn. So we're laughing, and while we fold and sort through donations I tell her some about it, bringing Edward home. We had a history, protective, young, two Charlie's who grew on each other, well he grew on me. Mr. Carson, she knows that, knows how it was. Charlie and Jasper. She knows how it is.

There's things I don't tell her, how intense it is, yeah I can't state that, I don't know myself, how it's sprung to life like this and these old roots have shown up and merged with the new ones, the new wild shoots, it's not showing the half of how it is up top where the world can see.

"It's obvious," Rosie tells me. "Wherever you are that man is checking. And the way he looks at you, you're forgetting, I know that kind of look from my big monkey."

I just smile and fold the pair of pants in my hands. Maybe it is obvious up-top where people can see. But Aro thought Edward was my brother and that whole thing wasn't funny.

"You're sleeping with him, Bella." There's knowledge in Rosie's look. "You already have Charlie to get used to. This guy puts a child between those tiny hips you really think he'll stay?"

Speak of the devil, Edward is walking across the front of this part of the basement we use for the thrift shop. There are women whooping outloud. He has on his white overalls and a tool belt. These women approach him and he looks over at me, and he's grinning but I can see he probably held his own better in the prison yard. He waves and one of them follows the wave and my hand is still up from waving back.

"That your man?" Latisha calls.

I clear my throat.

"Answer the question, Bella," Rosie says.

"Yes," I say and it's pretty loud. "Keep your hands off my man," I say next and there's hooting and some hollering then. More women, there on a Saturday digging for children's clothing mostly, they join in and it's oohs and aahs, and Edward, cool back in the day, wears a deep color in his face I can see from the desk.

"He is fine, fine," someone says, and others join in, "Uh-huh, mmm-hmmm," and lots of laughter. He waves once more and he can't get out of there fast enough, but he gets a round of applause.

Rosie is laughing and so am I, and I wonder if Edward will have the nerve to check on me again.

"You're in love," Rosie says.

No comment.

"I was beginning to wonder."

"Get outta here," I say cause she and Emmett are in so many people's business she doesn't know when to quit.

"It's a good thing baby, love," Rosie says. "You being safe?"

"Are you?"

She laughs and so do I.

"Just say no," she says.

"We see how that's worked out," I say.

I tell her about Charlie then, and she knows how it goes, a million sad stories.

He's enrolled in that school in Jasper's neighborhood," I say.

"Yeah, you have to get him close to you. Look into that private school by your house. That academy."

"Not some right-wing boot camp," I say.

Rosie blows through her lips. "Think I'd send you to something like that? It's small, like really small, a struggling start-up, but they're young and committed, you know? And it's all about the kids. You know he's behind. They'll work with him."

She tells me who to call, where to go. I punch it into my phone. I want to cry such a swell of relief hits me. Yeah, I didn't know I was feeling Charlie's pain so much on this but I am. I'm not going to let him tough it out. Some things he'll have to endure, but others…"How much?" I ask meaning the school.

"Not cheap. But it's grass-roots, you know?"

"How much is grass-roots?"

"Prepare yourself for a couple hundred of month, then if it's more you're already at two hundred in your mind. If it's less…party! Jasper works. Make him feel the pain just to remind him he's got a son."

She also recommends a dentist, a lady with small hands, and a pediatrician. I have struck gold today in the thrift shop and it's not somebody's used drawers.

Two sweaty kids appear at the desk, Charlie and Susie, both with purple moustaches. And down the front of Susie's shirt a serious grape spill. "Mommy," she's saying, pulling the sticky t-shirt away from her chest.

"Susie McCarty you been in that grape juice after I said not to touch it," Rosie says rounding the counter and grabbing her daughter's hand.

Off they go cause apparently Susie has touched New Hope's version of sacred wine.

"Better get back here and lay low," I tell Charlie. He rounds the counter and stands by me looking guilty with his purple mouth.

"She said we could do it," he says.

I take in a big breath. The garden of Eden comes to mind, but I don't want to over-complicate it for him.

"It made my tooth hurt," he says and I don't know if it was the juice or the sin, but redemption is on its way.


	48. Chapter 48

My Ex-con 48

The following Wednesday at the dentist, for all of our talk about this, Charlie is shaky. They worked him in because he's in pain. It started with the grapejuice and never really calmed down. They say the kids do better if their parents wait outside. I end up standing in the room at least and the dentist allows this because she can see I need to be there…or maybe she's tired.

We have the same last name so they assume he's my son, even though I've used my very limited knowledge to fill out his paperwork and scratch out 'parent,' and put, 'aunt.'

First they clean his teeth and talk to him about brushing. He's attentive. He doesn't want to come back here if he can help it. He has no idea about check-ups.

He told me Granma gave him a rice-sock to hold on his jaw when the tooth got going. Sometimes she'd put a cottonball back there soaked with whiskey. It tasted bad, he tells me and I don't react, but inside I'm saying I guess the old lady doctored him in the way she knew. Somewhere in the world it's still nineteen hundred and thirteen and little as he is he's probably been drunk a time or two, for that matter, she probably laced his formula with whiskey too, although I'm not sure he got formula. I remember someone mixing canned milk and Kayo for Jasper, so it's anyone's guess and what about Charlie's mama? Fetal alcohol syndrome? Proper nutrition of any kind? Prenatal care? The answers my friend are blowing in the wind.

I wave to Charlie, this little one with the 'save-me' eyes. He brings it out in me, the wonder woman side of myself. I know this role and here I am, red, white and blue, and now that I'm older I have some actual power-maybe.

Charlie kicks his feet at first, but once his mouth numbs up he's fine. They have shown me the x-rays and the decay is very close to the nerve. Any deeper and Charlie would have had to have a root canal to keep that tooth alive. So they fill his cavity and now that molar is good for four more years. If we're lucky.

So he's proud of his new toothbrush and toothpaste. He's drooling, but I keep motioning for him to wipe it.

Things can always be worse, I tell him later when he's complaining that he can't keep his milkshake in that side of his mouth. I'm telling him to swallow on the good side of his mouth and he can't seem to master it.

Next it's the barber's. He fights me about getting in another chair, but I wait for him to see it my way. We watch a couple of others, a kid younger than him because kids his age are in school, and nephew does find some pride and come around. I figure he just says 'no' as a go-to. It's his way of holding off anything new.

He's surprisingly opinionated about his hair, likes it longer on top. He does remind me of Jasper there, but I think he's going for Edward's look. Edward's is getting longer and he's had it trimmed on the sides, but he keeps hair on the top and it's straight with a couple of cowlicks, and I love it, but this little fuzzball is going to have to figure it out cause his dad didn't do him any favors in the hair department.

When we enroll him in school, I pick Jasper up from the jobsite and take him with us. I'd already toured it on my own and they are allowing Charlie to come in late.

Rosie was right about the two hundred. That's two hundred apiece. Jasper's ready to shit a cow, but hey, it costs to be Johnny Appleseed, spreading it around. Every now and then you get a crop.

At the pediatrician's I find out Charlie is small for his age and malnourished. I don't know how he got the white puckered scar on his shoulder, or the one on his knee. I tell them he bangs his head at night…on the pillow. They assume it's some kind of self-comfort. He also wets the bed now and then. No drinking after seven? Yeah, I won't enforce that.

And Charlie needs his eyes checked. He has trouble seeing close-up. Thank God for Harry Potter. Not that Charlie knows at first who he is, then he thinks he heard of him. We'll be watching those movies very soon. We need a hero in glasses besides me, but after the exam and while we're picking out frames, he tries to get a pair that match mine, black horn-rimmed types. Maybe we won't need Harry for this. I play up how smart they make him look. And he blows me away and says, "Like Edward?"

I'm the one with the glasses, the one figuring everything out, doing all the dirty work, well a lot of it, and he gives Edward kudos for smarts?

I pull on that new haircut a little.

So it goes. Me and Charlie shopping for all the right school supplies, and a few more clothes too, and he likes it loud and bright and wants a wallet with a chain and a skull. This is Wal-mart, not Hot Topic.

But I go ahead and get it cause…I do. And I get the rubber sheets.

So that's the next week. All that work culminates in Charlie going to school on a Friday so he can ease in. He loses his pride when he breaks out crying like a baby that first day. He clings onto me. I have to sit with him in the office and get him calmed down. He doesn't think I'll pick him up.

"I will," I insist. He wants Edward.

"Edward had to go to work," I say. Like I don't? They are working hard to finish the four-family, and in a week we start Aro's twelve units.

But one day at a time.

I tell Charlie we'll see Susie on Sunday, but not if he doesn't go to school. I tell him Susie goes to school and she never cries. He says he doesn't care. But eventually, he relents and follows the teacher along the short hallway and enters a classroom.

That evening when I pick him up, he comes running out all smiles, new backpack nearly dragging the ground in one hand, some papers in the other. He's had a great day.

Now I want to cry.


	49. Chapter 49

a/n: Yesterday I accidentally posted a rough draft of 48. Sorry about the confusion. I reposted 48 and cut it off at the proper place—Bella nearly crying as she sees Charlie coming out of his first day at school. Anything else was me writing drabble as I prepared where the story might go. I had cut it off but for some reason it was still there after I posted so…whoops. So those of you who read my excess drabble, try to purge this from your mind now—stand on one leg, close your eyes and sing "I wish I was in Dixie," then read the REAL drabble.

And thanks for all the great comments.

My Ex-con 49

Over Charlie's first full week of school, the temperatures start to rise from freezing to chilly. Edward begins to dig the holes for the porch posts in the semi-frozen ground. On Wednesday night I keep going to the open backdoor to watch him. With Daylight Savings Time in effect, he has good light until seven-thirty or so, and he's making the most of it.

He's wearing his workclothes-a white T-shirt and his overalls, and his arms, well I just like to watch him. As soon as Charlie finishes eating his supper he's sitting there on the stoop, his legs dangling. He's telling Edward about school and his new friend Tobias who will not allow anyone to call him Toby. He also wears glasses and a hearing aid like Aunt B, but just one and Aunt B wears two.

This is where it hits me, those people at the school know everything there is to know about Edward and me.

I'm not used to that. Now Charlie knows Edward was in prison. He knows we dropped Edward at the parole officer's one day, and since then he's heard Edward talking about his next meeting with his parole officer so Charlie asked what that was and Edward explained it very simply—he was a bad boy, he had to go to jail, he learned to be good but he has to see his parole officer so they can see how good he is.

So, I guess the kids at school know Edward's an ex-con and the teachers probably do too.

Edward hops inside to get a drink and stand in the doorway where I'd been so he can look at his work. I'm doing some more of the dishes and he gets close to me to put his glass in the sink. He kisses me under my ear and my hearing aid whistles and it tickles and I laugh.

"You like her or something?" Charlie says.

"Yeah Dude," Edward says kissing me there again. "She's my Bella."

"How come she's your Bella?" he asks with traces of yuck. And before Edward answers he adds, "Are you guys married or something?"

Charlie seems open to either of us answering.

"Something," Edward says quickly.

"Tobias says Moms and Dads should be married."

Now I get the phrase, 'Out of the mouth of babes.'

"What about aunts and uncles?" Edward says. He's got his hands on my waist, like protectively.

I'm washing the same glass over and over.

"I don't know," Charlie says. "Can I have another stick of corn with salt and butter?"

He's already eaten two, but there's one left so he's welcome to it. Edward releases me with one more kiss and fixes the corn for Charlie. He hands it to him where he sits on the stoop. Then he steps around Charlie and jumps down, getting ready to dig some more.

I take up my post, standing behind Charlie while he licks butter from the cob. Edward gets in place and lifts the post-hole digger and makes another plunge into the mud. He's working like a dog, but he seems to be enjoying himself.

"Where do babies come from?" Charlie says before he takes off noisily decimating a row of corn.

My hands are open now, my mouth too as I stare at Edward.

Charlie has his head down as he munches and Edward is looking at me while mouthing, 'fuck me.'

"Tobias says…." Charlie begins between bites.

"Eat your corn," Edward says, then he takes another stab at Mother Earth.

"Do you know?" Charlie says looking up at me.

"I always heard they came from heaven," I say.

"Not out of the lady's pee-pee or something?"

"Tobias say that?" I say. Then I look at Edward like, 'help.'

"He said maybe," Charlie says and now he's sucking on the cob.

Edward is wearing a big grin as he slams that tool against the earth. I ask Charlie to move over and I sit carefully beside him. "The baby grows in the mother's tummy and when it's ready there is a place the mommy has down there where it comes out."

"Oh," he says. "Can I throw this to Bull?" He means the cob from his corn.

"Go for it," I say. He stands and calls to Bull and pitches the cob as far as he can. Bull snatches his prize and walks to Edward and lays there ready to chew the thing to bits.

Charlie takes off to get his newest picture of Bull so Edward and I can admire it. While he's gone we share a laugh. "Give me the interrogation room and a couple of cops," Edward says.

"Did I do all right?" I say.

"Better than Tobias. I keep thinking about peeing a baby. Shit!"

We're laughing when he comes back with his picture.

"Why are you laughing?" Charlie asks.

He sits beside me and I see a really good picture of Bull scratching behind his ear. "I guess we're happy," I say.

"Why are you happy?" he asks.

"Dude," Edward says, "show me the picture."

He turns it then so Edward can see. Edward looks at me. "Like Jasper," he says.

Yeah, Jasper always could draw really well.

"Is Bull going to die?" Charlie says pushing his glasses up his nose.

I lift my legs, turn on my ass and get on my feet. "This one is yours," I say to Edward.


	50. Chapter 50

Awww, thank-ya.

My Ex-con 50

On Monday we start the job for Aro. Aro is there bright and early to meet us. Them. I'm taking Charlie to school. Thing about the Whitebird School, it doesn't provide transportation. So we have to drive Charlie. The alternative is to car-pool and we're working on it, but so far we haven't resolved the issue. If we carpool we'll have weeks where we have to drive further out to pick up kids whose parents can easily scoop by and get Charlie. So we're debating the issue.

On top of it, I wonder if they'll trust us—if word is out about Edward-I don't want trouble and I don't want to stir the waters for Charlie. I'm not going to give someone a chance to reject us. If we keep to ourselves it will be better for all of us. That's what I really believe.

Anyway, Edward, Jasper, and Riley meet at the jobsite an hour and a half before me. They know what to do. Edward and I will be one team, Jasper and Riley the other.

But when I get to the site after dropping off Charlie, I walk down the hall and I hear Edward's voice. So I stop at the open door, off to the side where they can't see me.

Riley has just said, "You're the guy she fucks."

And Jasper says, "Whoa mother-fucker."

And I fight my instinct to go in and break it up.

"We clear?" Edward says.

Jasper says, "Answer him man."

"I already did. Years of busting my ass and she puts her fuck over me," Riley again.

I know what this is. I told Aro Edward was foreman. Aro said, what about Riley or some shit like that. I just wanted Aro to respect Edward.

There's scuffling. "Who you calling her 'fuck' man?" It's Jasper.

Edward is telling him to calm down.

"He said she just did it to fuck with Aro. You don't listen," Jasper says, but it's too intense. He's had fights with Riley before but not for a long time.

"Stay outta my face," Riley says.

Then Jasper, "You know who you're fuckin' with? I've seen him kill…."

Edward, "Jasper, shut the fuck up. Shut up."

"You don't mess with Edward you stupid mother fucker. You don't mess with him, man." Jasper

"This is over. It's over," Edward is saying with some weight in his voice.

So it gets quiet and I backtrack to the car and search again for the cap I forgot, but not really. I'm waiting for enough time to pass so my mind can catch up. When I go in this time I call out for Edward and Jasper tells me he's in twelve. He comes out in the hall. I get closer I see he looks like shit. I already know he's not sleeping well. I doubt he's eating much.

"Didn't see you around this past weekend." me

"I had stuff to do."

"Okay," I say. When he lies I don't push, he knows that.

"How's…how's he doing…the kid?" he says.

"Your kid? He's…great. Just took him to school."

He looks at the floor and nods.

"Come for supper." me

"I got a meeting tonight…you know." He knows I want to hear that, that he's calling his sponsor. Doesn't make it true.

"Yeah." I round him and check on how they are doing.

Riley won't look at me but he says, "Who's foreman on this job?"

I made him foreman because of Jasper. Riley is a nearly good employee. That means most of the time he does an adequate job. But he's never a hundred percent, he's too closed off to watch over everything. Artie is less intelligent probably, but more responsible. Definitely more patient. But I have to keep Artie on the out of town work because he will handle what comes up and he will meet a deadline without me breathing down his neck. And Artie works really well with Jasper, Jacob or Mike. Riley competes he doesn't lead.

We normally don't discuss the foreman thing in front of Jasper, but Jasper unofficially knows he's not in charge. When he's on the high side of his cycle he doesn't know it as well as he does say…now, while he's dark under the eyes and extra skinny and haggard.

Without Alice, of course he's spiraled down. I don't know what his weekend was like. I didn't check on him, haven't had to beyond work in a long time. I'd invited him over, not that he came. Of course he'll pull even further from Charlie if he's slugging downward. And he is.

"You are," I say, answering Riley's question about being foreman.

"Fuckin'-A," he says. "Aro know?"

"Don't worry about Aro," I say. I'm done here. I'm not apologizing to Riley. No way. I've put up with shit from him more than once. So I take off for twelve. It's upstairs at the far end. Riley and Jasper are in one, ground floor, six units per floor.

Edward is in twelve taping off.

He barely looks at me when I get in.

"Hey," I say.

"Hey B," he says, but he still doesn't look.

"What's the matter?" I say.

"Nothing," he says, the sound of tape unrolling as he finishes a section of the living room. He clears his throat, "How'd Charlie do?"

Charlie was struggling. It was Monday morning, his eighth day at Whitebird and over the weekend he'd lost his confidence. I had to go in with him again and he didn't cry like before, but he didn't want me to leave. They were going to take them to a nearby park for recess and he was afraid they wouldn't bring him back to the school and then I wouldn't be able to find him.

So we get through that and it makes me even later to the site.

"He did okay," I say to Edward.

He's taping off so I get to the paint. I can usually trim without taping—usually. But this kitchen is a bitch. So I'm glad Edward has been patient and done the dirty work.

"That's it on Charlie?" Edward says. "Hour and a half to take him to school?"

"I texted you."

"I figured you had some kind of trouble. I don't hear that thing while I'm working." No, he's not in the habit of reading texts. The phone is new. He thinks texting is ridiculous. He hasn't learned to peck it out, thinks the keyboard is made for a baby's hands. I know guys with thumbs like sausages who probably text faster than some people type.

"I would have called…if it was something," I say. I'm not used to this. I tell him more about Charlie then.

He comes over to me, puts his hand on my arm, kisses my forehead. "Don't look at me like that."

"You seem…." me

"I'm fine," he says.

We get the lid off the first bucket and he starts to stir.

I'm watching his hands. They were on me this morning, four am, so sweet on me, so loving I'm polished under my clothes, still warm from those hands.

But Jasper said 'kill,' and I wonder what those hands have done.


	51. Chapter 51

My Ex-con 51

Around two-forty-five I leave to pick up Charlie.

I get to the school and park. I'm walking through the adults and children milling into and out of the building. At the door I give my name to the volunteer and I'm asked to wait for Principal Sharp.

"Where's Charlie?" I say.

"In the principal's office," she says with a sad smile.

Great.

Then the principal is there, a nice guy, looks like the kind of guy who should be a principal, a salt of the earth African American type. "Charlie is in my office," he says. So I follow him to the room he uses for an office and Charlie is there with the nurse and he calls to me and runs the short distance and plows into me.

Mr. Sharp asks me to sit and I do so with Charlie glued to my overalls. My glasses are splattered with paint and Charlie wants to take them off right away and talks about cleaning them and I have to push his hands away and say, "Not now Charlie."

"But I wanna," he says like a total brat. His face is dirt-streaked. He doesn't look much better than Jasper right now. He's been crying a long time.

"What happened?" I ask the principal.

"Charlie used bad language today," the principal says. "We can't have that kind of language in our school."

"Tobias stepped on my foot," Charlie says loudly very close to my face.

"Quiet down, Charlie," I say.

"Tobias did step on his foot," Sharp says, "and I've spoken to his mother as well. I'm asking that you speak with Charlie about his language and each boy prepare an apology for the other. If Charlie's language doesn't improve it will count as a strike against him and a one-day suspension. I am giving him mercy this first time as I understand he's adjusting, but this type of language will not be tolerated in the future."

I guess I can't ask what he said, but it's a short file. Mother-fucker has rolled off his tongue before. I meant to get to that, the lecture about it, but I never did because I suck as a mother.

"He and Tobias will begin their day in my office. When they've apologized they may continue in class, but Charlie may not use that type of language, even if someone provokes him. If he has an issue with another student he needs to speak to his teacher."

We talk some more and I take Charlie's bag and his hand and we go out to the car and I feel like I've been chastised right along with him.

"Was it the f-word?" I ask before we get in the car.

"Yes," he says softly once we're in.

I wait for the click of his seatbelt and I start the car.

Fuck me.


	52. Chapter 52

My Ex-con 52

"There is going to be a change around here," I say slamming the package of hamburger on the counter. After this morning at work with the three amigos, then this thing with Charlie, I've had it.

They are working on the porch. Charlie says he has no homework and I've been through his backpack and I can't see that he does so I'm scrolling through my laptop now to double check Whitebird's site.

The backdoor is open and I am literally speaking to Charlie and Edward while they work and while I work because I always have so much to do it's inhuman.

This way we don't have to look at each other. I'm inside, they are outside. They have hammers, I have…hamburger.

I don't see anything on the website from any of the teachers. Charlie has admitted his role in the drama at school. Tobias smashed his shoe down on Charlie's foot. So it wasn't a, "he stepped on Charlie's foot," it was a deliberate smash down. And Charlie did not retaliate, which I am proud about. But it hurt and an f-word got out.

I'm proud of his self-control in not striking out, but he did it with an f-bomb and I know that's not going to fly.

Unless you work for me. I'm thinking of all the f-bombs I heard just today when my crew had their little altercation. Yeah I had a role with my eff-ed up, or screwed up fly by the seat of my…overalls management style but their response was crude and low-down. We're white trash, what can I say.

"We're white-trash," I say throwing the package of meat in the sink. I can't outrun it, or outwork it. We suck.

"B," Edward says sticking his head in the bottom half of the doorway, "it's okay. I've got it with him."

"Got what?" I say. "Did you use the f-word when you talked to him about using the f-word?"

He laughs, just a short burst, but I'm not laughing so he catches himself. "He gets it."

Charlie's face appears under Edward's arm. He's smiling. "I get it," he says.

"Don't make light of this," I warn them. "One more slip and he gets a strike. He's been there eight days."

"He knows," Edward says like I'm the one being unreasonable.

"Oh he knows? Do you know? How about this morning?"

"This morning?" Edward says.

"At work. The three of you with your mouths…."

Charlie pulls his head out and it's just Edward.

"What are you talking about? You were there?" Edward.

"I heard it. Pure poetry."

He goes back to his hammering. I hurry to the door.

"I heard it all. Everything," I say, but he won't look at me for a few seconds, then he does.

"Hazard of eavesdropping," he says with an admittedly cute smile that somehow infuriates me, though it doesn't reach his eyes, and he's not looking at me anyway.

Charlie is running around the yard with Bull.

"Good thing I did listen," I say, an inner voice warning me not to do it but I plunge right on, "good thing. Lots of secrets floating around. You hear things. I did."

He purses his lips and starts another nail.

"And you know what I heard. You know."

He stops. "Fuck this," he says.

"You gonna tell me I can't listen to him? That he's crazy? You can play that card if you want to. We've got…all kinds of excuses around here. And if we don't…we just lose it, you know? We run out of rooms…losing it."

"That's it," he says throwing the hammer. He stalks off then. Charlie asks him where he's going but he doesn't answer. He's going into the carriage house.

I jump down, mutter 'fudge,' and take off after him.

"Where's Edward going?" Charlie asks.

"Get in the house," I say to him.

"But…."

"Get in the house," I yell limping cause my foot hurts like shit. I keep going to the carriage house and I push the door open so it bangs loudly. Edward is in there throwing wood around.

"That's right, run away. Run away," I say in this big voice.

He turns. "You caused that shit this morning. It's not enough I'm working my ass off to try and show you something different."

"Me?" Hand on my chest, eyes bugging out, stretching my lids as they try to spring free of my sockets.

"Telling that asshole I'm the foreman? What the fuck B? It ain't enough I'm standing by keeping my mouth shut while he hits on you right in front of me? You can't just say I work for you and I'm you're fuckin' boyfriend?"

"I hate that word. I hate it." I mean boyfriend.

"Sounds like you hate me, B."

"Oh yeah? Sometimes I do. Right now? I do!"

Someone grabs me, little hands bunched in my shirt. "You said hate's a strong word. You said not to use it. Stop yelling at Edward! Stop yelling!"

"Charlie Fucking Swan I swear to God I told you to get in the house!" I yell.

He's looking up at me, the needy eyes, the desperate face, he's always desperate. Where did he come from and why me? What have I ever done to be the mole in whack-a-mole, what have I ever done?

1111111111

We do end up eating dinner. It's sad hamburgers and boxed au gratin potatoes. Also peas. It's just disgusting.

We don't talk while we try to gag down the food. No one is going anywhere. That's the miserable thing.

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That night when Edward is putting Charlie to bed I bring up an empty Cool Whip container and my lined notebook and three pens. "Hey, I have an idea. We're going to each put five little pieces of paper in here with things someone has to do if they swear."

"You can do mine," Edward says in this dull voice.

"No," I say. "We each have to do this."

"Then I'll do different ones for you," Edward smirks.

"No you won't. These are things the swearer has to do for swearing."

I sit on the edge of Charlie's bed and start to tear strips of paper.

"Yeah," Charlie is saying rubbing his hands together.

I hand out the strips and Edward is sighing. I know we have bigger fish to fry. I mean 'killing' hardly stacks up next to 'swearing' on the Richter Scale of family problems, but one thing at a time.

"How do you spell Chuckie?" Charlie says.


	53. Chapter 53

My Ex-con 53

"Dude no, nah, nah, nah," Edward is saying.

"He has to do it, he has to do it," Charlie is dancing around the next morning.

"If you'd get your fuhhhhh," Edward says holding one of Charlie's socks while the kid continues to dance and go for the container so Edward can take another paper.

"Get out of here with that. You put it on," Edward says throwing the sock at him. Charlie said his toe was sore from where Tobias stomped it.

I'm one angry fricker everytime I think of that little Pharisee hurting Charlie.

"B," Edward says to me against all the background noise, "you need to stay off Google for your parenting. You give this little tyrant all that power? I know ganglords ain't as in your face as this dude."

"Charlie, settle down," I say.

"He's gotta pick," Charlie insists holding the tub.

"I already got one of those Chuckie Cheese's and I ain't taking you everytime I curse, no fuhh…." Then, "Shit," Edward says.

Charlie is losing his mind.


	54. Chapter 54

My Ex-con 54

The morning of Charlie's hurt toe Edward is frustrated.

"What's the matter?" I say, though I know there is plenty that's the matter and we have not talked about any of it. We went to sleep. This is the first time we left our bed without making love.

"Nothing," he says. It's more than the tub of punishment. I think it's us.

"I can't even go to that school with him," he says angrily shoving his wallet in his back pocket.

He needs to get to the jobsite. But, what would he accomplish at Charlie's school?

"You want to go in with him?"

"I'd like to. I told you he needs…."

He wants to say, 'a father.' I remember his declaration that no kid of his was going to be picked on or something. He said he'd be mean, that guys with fathers got off…like James.

But he can't blow it at Whitebird. He can't go in there straight out of the yard or something.

"I'll make sure it's okay. He won't be alone," I say.

"I'm no good to him. In a simple thing like this I'd do more harm than good," he says disgusted.

I go to him, put my arms around him, face against his back. "Don't."

"Hate B. Did you mean that shit?"

I sigh. "Charlie was right…a little strong."

He turns in my arms.

"I have another idea," I say.

"Oh shit."

"No, it's a good one. No matter what…everyday is a new start."

He laughs, grazes my cheek with his knuckles. He takes my glasses off my face and we break apart so he can clean them.

"Sometimes," I say, my voice strange in the room, "I say the wrong stuff because maybe I don't say the right stuff, you know?"

He laughs again as he's leaning against the dresser polishing my glasses with a Kleenex. "No."

I step close and lean against him and he puts the glasses on me again, our arms around each other now.

I don't know what else to do, what to say without tearing into us.

"I love you," I say. "That…um it never goes away, even when I'm a bitch."

"C'mere," he says, his lips so close to mine, then he's kissing me and it all runs away and there's only the big, big love.

"You can tell me anything," I say. "Anything and it won't change how I feel."

"Shhh," he says, kissing me some more.

111111111111

At the school Tobias and his mother are already waiting in the office. I try not to hold the blond ponytail coming out of the back of her cap against her. I don't know why. I do it myself sometimes, but I don't have the rest of the look, don't want it, but I have a prejudice against her on sight is what I'm saying.

So I go in, my overalls, my paint splattered oxfords, my bluejean jacket and my braid.

Tobias says, "Hey Charlie."

Charlie says, "Hello," in this whatever voice. "He hurt my toe," he says right off, for all our practicing to just say he was sorry about the word.

Principal Sharp invites us to sit and we do. I'm side-eying Tobias. He's no bigger than Charlie, but he seems bigger.

"You're hearing impaired like me," he says all chipper.

"Not with my hearing aids," I say. "I'm not hearing impaired when I wear them." Over-talk. How I hate it when it's mine.

"That's a great attitude," his mother says. And it's not sarcasm.

Fudge.

Sharp says, "Boys, I know your parents have talked to you both about what happened yesterday. What would you like to say to one another?"

Tobias pipes right up, "I'm sorry I hurt your foot Charlie. Even if you call me names I shouldn't hurt you. Jesus turned the other cheek and so should I."

"And Charlie?" Sharp.

"My toe is sore," Charlie says with feeling.

"Tobias feels terrible about that Charlie. He knows hurting you was wrong," Mrs. Tobias says.

I nudge Charlie and he says, "Okay. Sorry."

That's it. Edward told him keep it short and sweet. He also said, "Pay the man and do better."

"Sorry for what, Charlie?" Sharp says.

"For calling Tobias smelly poop and mother-fucker," Charlie says and it's too loud for the room and too big but Sharp did ask.

"I'm proud he didn't get physical, you know?" Oh God I'm talking, but pony-tail talked so I keep going, "I mean that doesn't make the name-calling right, but you know how it is when you get hurt, you want to…," hurt a mother-effer, I smack a fist into the other, "and he didn't."

Why am I tempted to laugh here? No idea.

Sharp points to a big colored chart on his wall. On the wheel of how violence becomes murder he shows us that the first step to actually killing someone is being frustrated with them. Name-calling is right there. That can lead to the next step of actually putting hands—or in Tobias' case feet—on another. If you carry out this path to the max you could end up killing someone.

That's what I was saying…Blondie!

But killing someone. My Edward. Killing someone?

I'd like to say it doesn't matter if Edward killed someone, or I don't care, but what kind of a twit would say that?

Charlie launches into the story about our Cool-Whip tub and how his dad has to take him to Chuckie Cheese three times for saying the f-word.

But I don't leave it there. I think of what Edward said—protect! "We're taking measures," I say nodding, especially with that chart for back-up. Yeah I look right at Mama T. "Are you?" I just get it out there.

"Oh…yes," she blurts.

"Good. Good, cause I don't want my Charlie getting hurt at school. Oh no I…we don't want that."

It's silent for a beat. I am so revved that when a buzzer goes off in the hall, I hear my voice saying, "We're all trying to do better." I laugh a little, but no one else is laughing beyond a couple of condescending, and in Blondie's case kind of jacked-up smiles. I am so glad Edward isn't here.

When Charlie is on his way to class and the other kid too, and his mom, I go back into Sharp's office.

"Mr. Sharp," I say, "Edward and me, we're working really hard to be good for Charlie."

"I hear that Miss Swan." He's at his desk holding a paper he's been trying to read.

"I mean…we don't have all the answers, but we're figuring it out as we go."

"I have some books…."

"I read stuff, but…that what Charlie said about Edward being his dad…."

Sharp lays the paper down. "He tells the other children and his teachers Edward is his father. Every morning when we share prayer concerns he asks for prayer for his father Edward that he doesn't have to go back to jail for killing someone because he's so tough."

Oh fudge me. "He does?"

"Yes. I leave it up to you to know how to handle that."

"Well, keep praying," I say and I laugh.

Sharp smiles. "It'll be all right, Miss Swan. You're doing a very wonderful thing for Charlie."

I feel tears very close to the surface. I swallow down something pretty big and I remember Mr. Carson then, and the way he'd let you know if something was good.

"Thanks," I whisper. "Maybe I'll take a look at those books?"


	55. Chapter 55

My Ex-con 55

I am barely aware of driving to the site. I get there and go straight up to twelve. Edward is painting trim in one of the bedrooms.

"How'd it go?" he asks over his shoulder.

I love him. I see him I feel it. I leave him and he's with me, like a glow.

I go to him all at once, wrap my arms round him from behind like I had that morning, only tighter, more desperate. He turns and holds the brush away. His other arm is around me. "What happened?" he's asking like I have a knife in my forehead.

I am looking at him, unable to know where to begin.

"What?" he says more gently.

"He's eight and he's still worried we're not going to keep him and everyday at school he asks them to pray you won't go to jail because you're so tough and he tells the other kids and his teachers that you're his father."

I have my hand on his face. "He worships you."

He laughs a little, but his eyes are shiny.

We're looking at each other. Really looking. I'm thinking of Edward, I'm thinking of Mr. Carson, how many times I wished he was my father as well as my friend. "He's found his hero," I say.

He clears his throat. "What about the trouble with the kid?"

"It will be all right. Sharp wants him to succeed." I tell him how Charlie let them know right off his toe was hurt, and how he repeated the words that got him in trouble.

We laugh at that. But I know he's relieved like I am.

111111111111111

It's well after lunch when my phone rings and it's Rosie. It's not unusual for her to call, but it's very unusual for her to call during the work day. I step down from the ladder where I'm rolling the ceiling and step near the window as I answer.

"Yeah," I say.

"Bella…," she breaks into crying.

"What is it?"

"It's Emmett. He's going to be fine. He'll be fine. He's so strong. But he was shot. Can you believe it? He was shot this morning when he opened up the kitchen. Why? What does he have he wouldn't give away? Everyone knows that. They know if you want it bad enough he gives it away."

"Where are you at?" I'm saying. I look at Edward and he's watching me.

She tells me which hospital, and I say I'll be there. She tells me I don't need to hurry. She just needed to talk. I ask where Susie is and she says her sister took her. "Why would anyone want to hurt Em?" she says. "This world… you know?"

I tell her I'll be there.

When I get off the phone I tell Edward what's happened. I realize then I have no details about Emmett other than he's been shot and Rosie said he will be all right.

Edward offers to take me, but Charlie will be out of school in an hour. He tells me he will work until Charlie is out then he'll get him and bring him back to the site and paint until five. "Don't worry about us," he says. "We'll eat out."

Relief. But Emmett, there's no justice in this world if Emmett McCarty doesn't recover.

1111111111111

Rosie is keeping vigil in the intensive care unit with Emmett. The nun calls in for me and Rosie comes out. "Bella," she says falling on me.

I stand there in my paint-spattered workclothes and hold her.

After a few seconds we stumble to the hallway in front of a big plate glass window, the city sprawled out below us. "I'd kill for a smoke," she says.

But she won't leave the floor so she'll have to forego the luxury of poisoning her lungs. She tells me the church was broken into, particularly Emmett's office, in search of some cash or valuables. She's laughing. "Isn't that a joke?"

It apparently is not. Emmett surprised the two thieves and one of them shot him in the shoulder. He had surgery and he's recovering. His vitals are stable. He said they were just kids.

"I've had it. I told him no more. No more," she says. "We've been living in a war-zone for twelve years, Bella. We've got Susie to think of. And that's not all." She cups her stomach.

I feel so inadequate to comfort her, to know how. "How long will he be here?" I ask.

"A few days," she says tiredly.

"Is someone bringing you stuff?"

"Yeah. I'm camping out in the waiting room I guess. No way I'm leaving him."

No sooner does she say that than the elevator opens and I recognize people from the neighborhood. She's going to get bombarded if she hasn't already.

They come to her with open arms. She goes to the woman, an older mother and her two sons.

She's crying now. I just stand there. She speaks to them a bit and says she wants to visit with me and she'll see them in the waiting room.

We wave hello and they go in there to wait for Rosie.

"Bella, I know you've got a lot to do." She pulls the glasses off my face like Edward would do. She uses the bottom of her shirt to clean them. "I just wanted you, you know? I don't have to be strong for you. I can say stuff, and you let me, you know?"

"What do you need me to do?" I say because I have no idea. But then it hits me, money. I know from Mr. Carson's long hospital stay how it costs to have someone in the hospital, and I don't mean the bill, I mean it's a steady drain on the wallet.

Emmett won't be able to work and I have no idea if the church can pay him. I don't know how it works. So I dig my wallet out of my pocket and pull out four twenties. "Take this."

"No," she says.

"Rosie, you'll need it." I shove it into her hand.

"Call me when you get a break," I say. "And tell him…we're praying." At least I know Charlie will.

"I will. I'm sorry you can't go in. He just got out of recovery."

"Let me know if you need something. Susie…or anything."

"I will. Thanks for," she holds up the bills, "and thanks for coming."

111111111111

I call Edward as I leave the hospital to tell him Emmett's condition. He is in front of the school getting ready to go in for Charlie. This is a first for him, for them. I wish I could see Charlie's reaction when his tough hero shows up in the hallway. We decide to meet at the restaurant for dinner before going home.

He asks me where and I say, "Might as well make it Chuckie Cheese."

He groans but agrees.

After we hang up I find my car and get inside and have a bit of a breakdown. It's small and strong, like a tornado passing through quick. It's a little part frustration and a lot of gratitude.

I felt Rosie's fear. Twelve years in a war zone and her husband finally takes a bullet from the people he's trying to serve.

I'm looking out the windshield at a park the hospital has cultivated for patients and visitors to have a respite in during their stays. I see big trees and I think of how they'll probably still be around long after all of us are gone. Life is quick. That makes it so precious. This is our time.

I thought I was happy…I was…but not like this…like now. I'm in love, as a lover…as a mother, and as a friend.

I call Edward again.

He answers quickly. "Yeah," he says, and I hear the lightness in his voice. He's walking to the van with Charlie. I can hear Charlie laughing and talking.

I tell him what I want to do. For Emmett and Rosie.

It sounds right to him. He tells me to do it now. "Maybe it will be something for them to look forward to," he says.

"Edward, it made me think of how short time is, you know?"

He doesn't answer. He's telling Charlie to buckle up. Charlie wants to know where they are going.

"I…don't want to take it for granted…us."

"Hey B? I made my promise to you way back."

"You did?"

"You were sleeping but I said it then. I said forever."

"Chuckie Cheese," Charlie is saying. "Can we Dad, I mean Edward?"

"You there?" Edward says to me.

"Yeah. I'll…I'll see you at the pizza place."

I practically run through the parking garage, across the skywalk into the hospital. I try to be patient as I wait for the elevator to come, and ride it once again to the fourteenth floor. Rosie is standing with the mom and her two sons that came while I was there the first time. Rosie is surprised to see me. I wait while she says good-bye to the others and she comes right to me and hugs me.

"Just forget all the dumb stuff I said," she says.

I tell her then. "When Emmett gets out, I want you to stay in Mr. Carson's. I'm going to have the pool filled and who knows, it might get warm enough to actually use it. He could recuperate there and you all could have a rest. Like a retreat."

"Wow. You know how hard-headed he is, so I can't say without running it past him, but Bella, thank you."

This time when I hold her, I tell myself I'm feeling more than her exhaustion. "It will be all right. Emmett will get strong again and you'll figure it out. You'll know what to do. Right now he just needs to get well. Let me know if we can do something at the church."

"I will Bella," she says.

1111111111111

That night in bed Edward tells me how Charlie called his name and ran to him when he saw him in the hall after school. We're laughing about what a wonderful wreck our boy is.

"And Edward," I say, so sleepy by now I can barely form words. "Next time you make me a promise, I'd like to be awake."

He laughs at that, he hugs me so tightly it squeezes the last bit of consciousness from me. I have good dreams.


	56. Chapter 56

Thank you all.

My Ex-con 56

"What is with you and four a.m.?" I say. But I can't resist, waking up with him all around me. We are love thieves, waiters for love, thirsty for it, almost smiling, just waiting for those last minutes to pass before I see Charlie is asleep and the dog has been walked and we can shed our clothes and duty. But we fall asleep again. It feels so good, the bed, each other, before we can think we sink into it and it's four a.m.

He kisses with a spiritual fervor. And his mouth, it's warm and soft and sweet, and open. He kisses and he whispers, pieces of poems, love you, pretty so pretty so mmmm, and I float in this sway, in his arms, I float.

Then it's white-water love. It's fast and it's deep and it's rush, rush…then it's slow. Oh. I don't want to fall off this raft, this bed that creaks and groans and shifts and makes us laugh, smile as we kiss and kiss and touch and feel one another.

"Look at me," he says and I do. I'm right here. "It so warm," he says, his hand down there. "Baby I think of how warm you are all damn day, it drives me crazy." He laughs. We are good at work. Besides the morning hug and the winks he's given me, we've been saints.

But bets are off now. I am warm and beautiful, he is…I adore him.

Strong…strong and safe, he makes me safe and thank God he is safe. My armor against the pain and bullshit. In my soul, he's in my soul, and his hands move over me, opening, shifting, slipping over, slipping in. He discovers all of me, makes me know myself, new with him, wild take, and ache.

I cry a little, die a little, it's so…long, it's too short, it's too rough, it's not enough, I want it now, not yet, yes now.

"My God," he says when it's over. Then, "I'm a fucking freeman," he mutters.

I think of Rose, hand on her stomach. I think of how it is to take the risk to love so much it bears fruit. I hold on to Edward, strong and whole, and I pray for Emmett then, for all the fathers who aren't too blind or deaf to see and hear the sons and daughters who ache for their direction and protection.

"I heard him call you Dad," I whisper.

"I gotta talk to Jasper, make him pull his head out of his ass," he says.

"It's all right," I say. "He's chosen you."

"Jasper doesn't know how…," Edward says.

"You're figuring it out," I say.

"He needs help."

"You can't fix him," I say.

"But I can help him, B. Isn't that what you do?"

Maybe it is…was. It's been a long time.

My prayers are over. The answer is too quick—fast and sloppy. If God is going to work on Jasper…leave us out of it.

"I'm doing enough," I think. "Hear me? I'm doing enough."

And right away I hear Carson. He says, To whom much is given, much will be required.

I'm imagining it. I'm making it up—this conspiracy.


	57. Chapter 57

My Ex-con 57

Emmett and Rosie have been living in Mr. Carson's house since Emmett got out of the hospital on Thursday. Today is Saturday and they've invited Charlie over to play with Susie.

Their plan is to stay for three weeks, maybe as long as a month. Rosie especially loves it here. They haven't had a break from their ministry for three years except for the time they went to a conference for urban pastors in San Diego, and then Emmett was speaking.

They believe in living where they minister, right in the neighborhood. Well Emmett believes that, but I get the feeling pregnant Rosie is rethinking things.

Emmett co-wrote a book, "From the Streets," a year out of seminary. It made enough money to take him on the road for a few years, speaking all over this country and in Europe. It's well-known at New Hope that Emmett is thought of in pastoral circles, wherever those are, and all I can think of are crop circles, but anyway Emmett is thought of as a radical preacher.

He had a long ministry in Chicago before settling here. There's been two more books and lots of rallies and speaking, but less so since Susie was born and practically nothing for the past three years. Emmett really didn't want to miss a day of Susie's life, so he dug in at New Hope and fought the good fight. And more people visited New Hope, pastors and youth preachers, bringing groups of young people right out of the suburbs or off college campuses to work at the mission. It's Emmett's theory that Christians are supposed to do more than judge things. They're supposed to get their asses off the pew and serve sinners. Those are Rosie's words, not Emmett's. He makes it more easy listening but he loves her fire.

So Emmett McCarty getting shot is a very big deal. There were enough flowers in his room that he kept the whole ward in blooms. His story was on the local news and written up in the paper, a big article on his work through New Hope. Donations poured in and people signed up to work in the food pantry and kitchen.

"It all works the good, baby," he said to Rosie from his hospital bed.

Rosie was less enthused. Well she was pissed.

Now here he is, in Carson's house. And it's big enough to hold him. He looks good sitting on the patio poking at a fire in the outdoor fireplace, more like a wounded football player than a preacher.

"Hey girl," he says to me.

"Hey Emmett."

"My queen has been catching the rays," he says meaning Rosie. She's lying on a lounge chair, a thick white afghan over her. I can see the relief in her face. She's out of the war zone. Emmett is healing. She has said she can let the pregnancy nausea and exhaustion take over. She says she could sleep for days.

"Ain't she a beautiful sight?" Emmett says grinning at Rosie.

Rosie flaps her hand at him, but she's smiling. "You're biased," she says.

But she is beautiful, and now that she's pregnant, even with the ordeal she's just gone through, she's still got it going on.

Initially, only a couple of people knew they were here. But Emmett is on the phone more and more. Rosie says she's showing mercy though. She learned a long time ago the futility of trying to stand between him and his work. She's just glad he's alive.

"Look Aunt B," Charlie says, bringing me a picture from the pile he's been drawing next to Susie on the picnic table out there.

It's a picture of two houses, a big and a smaller. Happy people are hanging out of windows and doors waving hello.

It's all of us. Charlie has shown each one. The biggest person is Edward. He's bigger than Emmett. He's colored Emmett brown. Edward is tan. I am pink like Rosie and Susie. But Charlie is tan like Edward. They are waving from the same window and the bulge on Edward's arm is as big as Charlie's head.

"Let's see Dude," Emmett says, big hand extended. Charlie is happy to show his work and explain it.

"Why is this guy so big?" Emmett asks, pretending he doesn't know who it is.

"It's Edward!" Charlie says jumping up and down on his toes.

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It takes us forever to get Charlie down that night. He's so revved to have Susie across the street, and to have Mr. Carson's magical house such a part of his life.

Once he's finally in and I've had a chance to take a bath and enter my room wrapped in a towel, Edward is stretched on the bed watching my laptop.

"Hey," he says setting the machine aside and hurrying to me.

I end up kneeling beside the bed, like I'm about to say, "Now I lay me down to sleep…etc."

He gets me down here on the pretense of a massage.

Well, I am kind of getting one, but it's the illegal kind. He's kneeling behind me, trapping me against the bed, his hands running all over me, lips all over me. I'm not coherent when he lifts me enough I'm half-lying on the bed and he is still behind, and his lips, his tongue, oh my God, I say his name in a strangled way, I'm clutching the sheets and he's clutching my ass, his tongue along the aisle between until 'bingo,' "Ed…w…w…."

The he throws me further across the bed, flips me over and gets on top of me, inside of me fast, the tension having built all day, even though he'd spent the afternoon and evening in the carriage house working on the plumbing and electric with Riley. He'd made these plans before realizing we wouldn't have Charlie. Once that happened, he tried to repair by taking several breaks to come to the house for drinks and these little frantic make-out sessions. He likes the build-up. I mean we had to wait so long. What's a few hours now but fun and anticipation, yet what a distraction he's provided all day from my bookwork. And that phone call.

But now he's working it…me…with his meat, as he calls it, so I'll say 'ew.' He's skillful with it, deliberate with it, even when I can tell he's ready to pop, and I bite on my knuckle to keep from screaming when it hits, the crazy burst, then the warm waves— and he tumbles after. We ride the high and he crashes to our bed, we're a two-body pile-up.

We kiss.

I cry.

He doesn't ask but rights us on the bed and settles in to hold me.

"Another satisfied customer," he laughs, a kiss on my temple.

But I cling to him. "We lost our twenties," I bawl, even though I know it saved us, still…it hurts. But what hurts more…what Emmett and Rosie have, this ease together, and so much time, met in college, back and forth as his work took him, but she supported him, and it took a while, but he always knew it was her and she waited through seminary and they married and they work together…and Susie.

He gets Kleenex, wipes at my face.

"I can't help it," I cry thready.

"Hey," he says, "I bet when it's said and done…we catch up, you know? We've covered what…ten years already? We've got an eight year old for crying outloud."

He makes me laugh a little and I lift enough to look at him. "We do, don't we." Well I never wanted children and here I've got one from the very effed-up gene pool I swore I'd never dive into. Best kid ever.

"Yeah," he says gently. "Hey B…you and me, right?"

My hand is on his chest, my chin on my hand. I want words. Lots of words.

"Tell me about that promise you made," I say.

He doesn't smile. "Just a kid, in your bed, watching you sleep. But I meant it. I promised forever."

"You should have told me."

"I'd already effed it. I'd already done the crime that would get me taken away." He smiles but it's sad.

"What if I was with someone when you got out?" I say.

"I told you Jasper said…."

"So? What if I had been?"

He takes his time, fingers on my cheek, eyes on my mouth. "Wouldn't have stopped me," he says. "I loved you from a distance for nearly a decade. Wouldn't have stopped me."

"Stopped you. What would you have done?"

"I don't know… let you know."

"What about my husband? What if I had kids?"

He shakes his head. "I'd give you a choice. But maybe not. Maybe I'd be good. Show up places, blend into the crowd, make you think you imagined it. Stand outside your house, peek in your windows, cut the electric."

I'm slapping him again. "You are such a convict."

"Inmate," he corrects.

I'm sniffing a little and we get quiet. My cell goes off and I don't plan to answer, but Edward grabs it off the nightstand and hands it to me.

It's her. Second time. I don't want to answer this. She's abdicating, and I don't want the crown.

"Hello?"

"You can do what you want, Bella. But the landlord called me a couple of times today and it's been two days of rock music blaring through his door," she says.

I'm quiet. I've got the visual, my brother, lying on the floor stinking drunk.

"I'm not telling you what to do," she says. "I just wanted you to know."

"Thanks," I say.

She doesn't answer.

"Alice? Take care of yourself."

"You too," she says. Then she's off.

Jasper didn't come to work on Friday, and he's not returning my calls.

"He's holed-up in his apartment. Blaring music in the background." I tell him the landlord called Alice.

"Why didn't you tell me? Riley could have gone over."

"Riley? Um no."

"You think I should?" He would in a shot. He's already sitting up, looking around for his shirt.

But he's not supposed to be around Jasper in off time, and if he's alive in there Jasper could attract the police. The apartment manager is tolerant, but he has a limit. If Jasper gave Edward trouble they could both end up in jail, or in Edward's case, federal prison.

"B, I'm here. Whatever we have to do with that f…effer, we'll figure it out."

I'm shaking my head. I knew it was bad, knew Jasper was sliding to the murky bottom, and I wrestled with it all day. Maybe this is why I was really crying.


	58. Chapter 58

My Ex-con 58

I am dressed, and Edward doesn't like my going out at night, and I think that's pretty funny considering how long I've been alone. He's insisting on going, I'm insisting he stays with Charlie. I'm not getting Charlie up for some weird trip when he's already fallen asleep. I'd never do that to that little boy—pull him anywhere near Jasper-shit.

Edward agrees, but we need to leave him with Rosie he says, but I'm not disturbing his sleep and anyway I'm not bringing Edward around Jasper.

"Then call over there and ask one of them to sit here while we're gone," he says.

But I don't want to do that. If I have to take Jasper somewhere I can't have them in the same car. I say this more loudly.

We try to make up but it's touchy. "I have to go," I tell him, throwing on a jacket and grabbing the keys. He grabs them away from me. That's fine. I have more in the visor.

He follows me onto the porch but he's stopped to light up a smoke he's that confident I can't get away. This night started out so good. Now I've got my hand on the car door.

"Better quit those things," I say to him just to make some kind of a truce before I do this. "I'll tell Charlie," I say, but he doesn't smile, he leans on the porch post and takes a drag.

Charlie wants him to quit, like he's done with the cursing. But Edward says he only stopped so he wouldn't have to go to the god-awful pizza place. Charlie tries to get the old deal working every time Edward has a cigarette. He gets another tub out of the kitchen and fills it with his homemade Chuck E. coupons, but Edward isn't buying into it this time. He tells me unless Charlie lights one up at school, he's keeping his balls on this.

I open the car door. That's when I notice Emmett's big form in the middle of the street. Looks like he's returning from an after-dark run. "No way," I say loud enough for him to hear.

"Beer run?" Emmett says, huffing and puffing.

"Weren't you in the hospital like three days ago?" I say.

"Where you going?" he says, his voice too full of life for this time of night.

"You trying to escape?" I laugh, but it's forced. I'm in no laughing mood.

"Hey, it's a great house. But I haven't sat around this much since I had a kidney stone a couple of years ago, and then I was rolling around." He's coming up my driveway. He nods to Edward. "How you doin' man?"

"Rosie know you've escaped?"

He laughs. "Come on girl. I could go for a ride," he says, hands on his hips. They are the biggest hands. Edwards are big, but they're slender, hard as nails, but lover's hands too, at least to me. Emmett's now, they're square and blunt. "You going to the store?"

"I'm a…on a Jasper run."

"Oh yeah? What's up?" We're talking over the car's roof now. Rosie is right about her husband. He has a nose for trouble.

"Alice left him. That's his…."

"I know Alice," he says. Yeah I forgot about that. He's met Alice at Carson's annual bash for New Hope volunteers. Jasper and Alice showed up a couple of times, also at the church. Just a few times to help out.

I explain it a little. It's weird. I don't talk about it. He knows Jasper has issues. Beyond that not much.

"How about I ride shotgun?" he says. "That okay with you Edward? Okay if I help out? What you say? Like Mulder and Skully, man."

"Which one are you?" I say. "You're supposed to be resting." If he wants to work he doesn't need to come to my neighborhood and do so. I'm supposed to be providing the retreat, not hooking him up for a ride down Jasper Lane. Good thing I'm not cursing these days, or I surely would be.

"She gets hurt around him," Edward says. He's right behind me. "He hurt her foot a few weeks ago. He gets crazy," he continues, as he puts his hands on me and gently moves me aside. I don't fight it. Not in front of Emmett. Edward has zipped his hoodie over his bare chest and yep, put on shoes.

"Goin' somewhere?" I say.

"You sit with Charlie. It won't take us long," he says all authority and no eye-contact.

"We talked about this," I say. "It's less than an hour from curfew."

"Your bro got a gun? We can call the police," Emmett says meaning Jasper. I mean he is just getting over being shot. He should have a healthy case of PTSD at least.

"He's a felon," I say.

Emmett laughs. "Oh yeah. That'll stop him."

Edward laughs too.

"Alice wouldn't let him," I say. Surely he doesn't have a gun. Surely.

"It's cool. I been there a few times. We'll go in soft, right? It's good, brother," he says to Edward as he gets in the car.

"It'll be okay B. Go with Charlie. I'll call you," Edward says as he gets in.

"I'm against this," I say, but he slams the door and looks at me through the window, small smile as he starts the car. Right away he's backing out.

Now I want a cigarette and I don't even smoke. I grab my phone and stare at the time. Thirty-nine minutes.


	59. Chapter 59

Thank you readers. And reviewers, you are my driving force.

My Ex-con 59

Bull is agitated. He knows we should all be in bed, but we're not. It's two a.m. Emmett finally texted. I know he's a texting fool. He says everyone is fine and they are headed back. He's taking Jasper home to Mr. Carson's house. Grateful as I am I'm horrified, too. It's too much. Jasper can't come to Carson's. That won't work.

My family has been ripped open a little wider. Well it's been me, calling all the shots, when Edward moved me aside and took over, I let him. I knew the risk. And I stopped fighting. I just stopped.

Right now I'm in Charlie's room, sitting on his bed. I'm running my hand through his hair, the same hair…. His mouth is open in sleep and there's a little spot of drool on his pillow. His cheeks are filling out with regular food, and his lashes are long and his skin so pure. I don't know if I loved him right off or if it snuck up. I just know he's mine, dropped in my nest, well brought here by me and Edward, and all I couldn't get right with my brother, all I didn't know to teach or do, it's different now, with him.

"Aunt B," he says not even awake cause he's a sound sleeper.

I kiss his soft cheek and say, "I'm here."

And he settles deeper into his pillow and he smiles a little.

Bull hears the door first and takes off out of Charlie's room and down the stairs. I follow into the hall but take time to carefully close Charlie's door.

Edward is coming straight up. We see each other and I'm waiting. I lead the way into our room and close that door, too.

He unzips the hoodie and takes it off, toes off his shoes next. I go to the bed and sit cross-legged. I'm looking at him, and I can see a new excitement on him, this quiet…man thing. He's been with men. One of them crazy.

"He was playing Poison, "I Can't Forget About You," almost two days straight," he says.

"Mother…eff," I say falling back on the pillows and pulling at my face.

"He's across the street at Emmett's. That guy, he goes right in. Nut-boy didn't faze him."

"So Nut-boy let you in?" I say because Jasper is fully capable of not answering.

"Emmett about knocked the door off its hinges and said pizza. He had to yell with the music. Jasper opened right up. He saw me and said what is this and a few choice words, and we went in. Emmett launched into a speech about some rockers from the nineties he knew and he was telling Jasper about getting shot, showing him the wound and Jasper starts in about Alice—and how he didn't know Maria was pregnant and that whole bullshit."

"He been drinking?"

"All damn day. Emmett's calling his sponsor later today. I don't really want to talk about him, think about him, or smell him for a while," he says.

"No way. That ends five years of sobriety. And he came back with you?"

"With a fight. Landlord called the cops before we got there. They know Emmett. That's the only reason I'm here."

"They didn't run your license?"

"Emmett explained the deal, said I was the brother -in-law and his neighbor. Like God himself vouched for me."

"Oh my God, my God why in the world did I let you do this? Oh God," I say and I'm about ripping the skin off my face.

"He works with the cops, he works with the PO's. They respect him. And him being shot…they respect him."

"And you still brought Jasper back here? Do you want to get locked up?"

"We're going to see my PO. It'll be all right."

"Let him get arrested. I don't care about him. I love you. I can't lose you again."

"You're not going to lose me. Calm down. You're going to wake Charlie. Calm down B." He's sitting on the bed beside me.

The one time I give up control and look what happens. "Every time he ruins it," I say.

"Calm down," Edward says again. This is probably how he spent the night talking to Jasper.

"I'm not bi-polar," I say.

"B…we're too tired for this. I'm dead, babe. It'll be all right. Now lay down."

"Why would you bring him back here? Why? Even if you beat the curfew violation and going around 'thee felon' Edward, the one you broke the law with, you can't live across the street from him."

"B…let it rest. Enough. I'm gonna wash up. Try and get some sleep I'll be right back." He gets to the door and hand on the knob.

"Wait," I say, and I'm up, throwing myself against him and holding on tight.

He doesn't say anything, carries me back to the bed and gets me in there. Then he follows me down and snaps off the light.

111111111

I am up at dawn, downstairs on my cell, calling Emmett. He answers on the second ring, sleepy but more alert than he should be for someone who was up with my brother's drama half the night.

He reassures me he'll stand for Edward. He's going to ask Edward's PO Bob Frieze to allow Jasper to live in close proximity for the purpose of rehabilitation. He wants me to go along as well.

"Jasper is right on the edge, Bella. He's lost his motivation. Alice leaving has triggered a real crisis for this man, and he's tried and stayed clean for a long time. He's been a solid citizen, paid his debt to society and walked the walk, little sister. I called his sponsor and he's coming over this evening. Soon as Jasper's slept off the alcohol I've got his meds and he's been spotty for a few days, then not taking them at all, and he will crash if he doesn't even out. So we'll get him back on his meds when he gets up. It'll be shaky for the next week, but he needs lots of support now to walk him through this. I don't think she wants to come back. Sounds that way."

Finally he takes a breath.

"What about Rosie and Susie? You want them around this?"

"Me and Rosie are used to protecting Susie. We been around worse than this. He'll be all right, Bella. He's a good man."

"Jasper?" I say, just to make sure.

"Yeah Jasper, but your man Edward, too."

"Yeah." It's good to hear someone besides me realize that…about Edward. But he's shed a different light on Jasper for me. That's not easy to do.

"Emmett…thanks. For everything. I'll think about it…all of it."

11111111111111

So that evening the McCartys invite us over for barbeque. I'm taking the salad. I've walked over to Carson's house many times with various dishes for various things, but this is weird. Charlie is already over there. Edward took him there an hour before to play with Susie. We were both a little uncertain about that since Jasper was around, but Rosie said on the phone he hadn't emerged yet, so Edward said let him go, Emmett won't let anything happen.

Charlie is on cloud nine about all this so I relent and throw together the salad, then myself. Edward has been working on the porch since early afternoon, and I've sat in the doorway and read the first Harry Potter book to him and Charlie. It's provided the perfect diversion from our troubles.

McCarty's words are dancing in my head like sugarplums. The thing about the five good years, they were made possible by the three m's: medication, meetings, and me. Alice too. Artie and reluctant Riley. Edward lining up. Now Emmett. It takes an effing village to raise Jasper Swan and the village is us.

I'm kind of surprised Edward consented to this—dinner with the McCartys. He hasn't been at Carson's since he'd lost it over there. But he'd gone along with it okay. So we're going over and he says he likes my hair down like that, and I just smile. He falls behind me and whistles and I shake a tail feather and he makes this sound like an African bird or something and I laugh and I trip so we both laugh.

I end up in the kitchen with Rosie. Jasper has gotten up recently. Emmett had packed a bag for him, and he's wearing a clean shirt with his ratty jeans. He looks like one of the homeless guys from New Hope. I go to him for a half kind of hug. Seems like neither one of us means it.

Now he's sitting on a lawn chair on the patio while Emmett works the grill. Charlie and Susie are running around the yard with Bull. Emmett has said, "Baby we're getting close here," just a couple of minutes before in his big voice, the one he uses at New Hope. He doesn't even need a PA system. I'm sure neighbors on both sides know we're ready.

I tell Rosie I'll take the red platter to him while she finishes the potato salad. So I'm standing behind him holding the thing and he's turning the meat on Mr. Carson's stainless grill and saying, "Yeah that drought down in Texas is pushing beef up to where you're better off barbequing the soles of your shoes, brother. Then they'd have to be leather and not whatever this crap is." He lifts his big foot a little. That's when he sees me standing there. He laughs and I step around him and set the big dish on the butcher block beside the grill. I'm grabbed from behind then and Edward drags me to his chair, sits again with me on his lap. He gets a kiss for, I don't know, not being a kidnapper, or because it's Sunday evening and officially spring even though it still dips to freezing every morning.

Jasper shakes his head. He's not entirely buying the deal with Edward and me, but now that he's lost Alice and gone crazy he can't even conjure his bi-polar superiority to condemn us.

"Got some lovin' goin' on," Emmett says about us to Rosie who brings the big bowl outside and sets it on the picnic table.

"Leave them alone," Rosie says.

Edward squeezes my waist a little. He's got a love-face for me, even with them looking on. It doesn't stop him from kissing me either.

Charlie appears suddenly holding onto the arm of our chair, "I'm hoongry." He says this with his head thrown back like he's baying at the moon. It gets a laugh from Edward every time.

Charlie runs off again and I get up to get my salad. Edward holds onto my hand as I walk away and I have to yank some to get free.

"She says she don't want kids," Jasper says, in his own little world. Were we talking about whether or not Alice wants kids? Hell no, spaceman.

He's like a ghost, my brother. He loves his natural bi-polar high, he admits that. He doesn't need drugs to feel himself going a hundred miles an hour. And it's great to know everything, about everything.

But that's not where he's at now. Not yet. Bet the farm, he doesn't get medicated Superman is right around the corner.

"I'm going to get her back," he says to me. "If you would just call her."

This is his mental default. He's going to get her back. And I already see where it's going. It's mine to fix. Soon I'll be the reason that their relationship has failed. Not him. Not all the shit he's put her through. The groove is already wearing in his brain. In the end he'll believe I made her go.

"Dude," Edward says kicking Jasper's chair, "get off that loop. Grab a pork steak."

So we gather around the table and Emmett says one of his big thank-you prayers and that's church for the day, for all of us, and we dig in.

Charlie has a new love. Pork steak cut in small pieces by Edward with extra sauce for dipping on the side. He's another dunker.

He's loving his time with Susie. When she gets enough of him she quietly hurts his feelings and I find him in a corner pouting, or he goes to Edward and sits beside him, his shoulders showing his dejection. As soon as she's had a break though, she crooks a finger and Charlie is pathetically running to her, just like Bull would. It makes Edward laugh when we share the latest Charlie stories in bed that night. Edward says he's forced to see himself in that. I do him that way, he says, and he's just as eager for more.

"Poor you," I say. "Rosie says I've got the glow, and it's not pregnancy…she says I'm besotted."

"Besotted," he repeats.

I push him onto his side so his back is to me. That way I can bite him at the base of his neck and all along his shoulders. He's laughing, then he's hissing, reaching back and digging his hand in my hair.

I bite on his ear, and under it, then I kiss all the bites. He puts up with it long as he can, then he falls onto his back and I pin his arms when they try to get around me. He's the taker now.

I nip his chest and work my way down and he's ready and waiting and saying yeah.

His hips rise off the bed some and I'm holding his wrists at his sides and I mean to laugh but it comes out like a hum.

"Put it up here," he's saying, raising enough to work his hands free, to grab onto me and try to spin me around.

"Wait," I say, making him surrender. I look at it, always so hard and ready. "Calm down," I say. "You've met my crazy brother? Well I have an oral fixation."

He smirks a little. "I can help you with that."

"Stay very still. Sometimes...I bite."

I move on him then, and he groans and submits.

I'm showing him what a besotted woman can do.


	60. Chapter 60

Breech baby. Wouldn't come out. Sorry it took so long.

My Ex-Con 60

I used to put a dish on the table, and the dish stayed. And I thought I loved that. But what did I know about love?

Now I put a dish on the table and someone is using it so I'd better grab another, and one more after that.

I'm not expecting Emmett to show up at my house so early on a Monday morning. "Can I talk to you and Edward?" he says. He wears a track suit, but he doesn't look awake enough to be out for a run. No, this is something else.

I make sure Charlie is eating his cereal then I lead Emmett out back where Edward is rearranging the equipment he's been using in the carriage house remodel, in the van.

I don't have to tell McCarty to hurry. Edward has to get to the site and I've got to get Charlie ready for school. So we're standing in the morning chill by the back of the van.

I know there's tension between Rosie and Emmett. I know she'd like to stay at Carson's for more than a couple of weeks. But I don't think that's what this is about. I figure this is some grave announcement about Jasper. He has to go to a rehab facility, that's my guess.

"How'd you guys get Frieze to let you parole out here when you're not married?" He's looking from me to Edward.

"I was already part of Edward's plan as his employer," I say. "He got Bob's permission to move into the carriage house. Me being his girlfriend…whatever…we didn't present it that way. Edward is renting this place from me, that's all," I say motioning toward the little house.

Emmett rubs over his beard-shadow.

"Bob figured it was a win. He knew me from Jasper's case and I'd met with him before Edward's release since I planned to employ him so I've gone through a new background check and he's been all over my property. Of course he knew Mr. Carson. He wrote me a letter, and you wrote me a reference letter too, remember?"

"Yeah I remember," he says.

Those letters were like I'd gone straight to the Obama's. I'd also gotten a letter from Emmett on Edward's behalf after he'd fixed the furnace at New Hope. I'd kept Frieze in good paper, like a lover sending roses.

"So what?" Edward says cause we can see Emmett hanging there.

"I take this back to Frieze about Jasper living across the street and he starts going over things he'll figure it out about you two. Rosie says one look. He won't even need to inspect the property. You two got something against marriage? It would really help our cause. For Charlie, too," Emmett says.

I look quickly at Edward. He's sort of stuck looking at Emmett, his mouth open.

Emmett laughs a little. "Bro, take a breath." Then he's looking at me. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," I snap, eyes still on Edward. He looks like Emmett just grabbed his balls and gave it all he's got.

Edward steps away, back to us, hands on hips. He looks up at the sky, bows his back. I hear a big breath, in and out.

He turns to us. "I fuckin' don't want to have to petition the state for permission to marry Bella. I wanted to get past this inmate bullshit."

"You know they don't parole a con to his girlfriend. Frieze gets to poking around…," Emmett says like knick-knack-paddy-whack. He's got his bone now.

"I'm over my thirty days," Edward says, like that fixes everything when we all know it doesn't.

"He finds a violation in the next year…," Emmett says, and that's all he needs to say. "You can petition out after a year Bro, but you get a violation like that, you'll be the one locked up."

"Jasper," Edward says like this is his fault. Much as I like to blame my brother for everything too, this is on us.

"It ain't just Jasper. Charlie, man, what about him? His social worker, Ann Compton? Very thorough brother. You think she's not gonna check out the man of the house? Charlie man, you have no secrets Bro. Ann compares notes with Bob, and that's what we'll be asking for, right?"

Edward says to me, "I'm so sorry Babe. You asked me… I thought…."

"No," I say. I don't want him to do this, this dooms-day thing. He'd rather go back to that boarding house than marry me.

I'm running back to my house before I hear anything else.

"B," he says. Edward is on me quick, holding my arm. "Wait a minute. Give me a minute. How's this okay?"

I don't have to have every one of his answers. I pull my arm free and walk ahead. I get in the kitchen and Charlie is sitting on the floor playing with Bull instead of eating his cereal.

"You have to get off the floor," I tell him. "Look at the time. You've got three minutes to eat your cereal." I get Charlie back to business then I look out the backdoor and Edward and Emmett are having some kind of heated talk out there. Charlie is chattering away. He can make Bull smile, he says.

"You don't finish that cereal you'll think smile," I say, and it's stupid and I hurry upstairs to make sure we've got everything. One thing I can count on? Myself.

They are in the house when I get down, my arms full of stuff. Charlie is showing Emmett how Bull smiles.

Edward comes right to me. "I wanted to make it right," he's saying. I can see he's—wrecked.

"Relax. We're not doing it," I say, but it's stern. I'm stern.

He's got my arm again and I'm holding all this stuff, mine and Charlie's.

"I know what you're doing," he says. "You have to listen to me. B."

I can't hold his gaze, not this one that penetrates. "You know the deal. I've told you a hundred times. You think this changes that? This is what you want then so do I."

He's serious.

"You're serious," I say.

He goes down on one knee. Charlie sees this from the kitchen. He's telling Emmett. I hear Emmett's laughter and him shushing Charlie.

Edward is on his knees pulling stuff from my arms—Charlie's jacket, his shoes, my jacket, my cap, Charlie's folder, my binder, my purse. The pile is on the floor now, beside him. Emmett has pulled Charlie away from the door. He's speaking to him in a loud whisper about giving Aunt B and Edward some privacy.

Edward's got his arms around me, his hands on the small of my back. He's looking at me. "Will you marry me Bella?"

I rub the front of my shoulder, over the button and hook on the strap of my bibs. My chin starts to tremble, like I'm cold or something, but I'm not with him like this. I close my mouth. I swallow. I put my hands on his shoulders. "I want to," I say and you almost can't hear it.

"But," he says, goading me to finish.

"You're forced. I don't know if you mean it."

He closes his eyes briefly, but he's smiling when they open. "Bella, I wasn't waiting to love you more. I wasn't waiting to feel more or know more about whether or not this is right. I was trying to get out of the web-make something of myself you could be proud of."

I put my hand on his face. He's clean shaven and his skin is damp. He's nervous.

"I haven't changed," I say. "We'll do it."

Emmett whoops it up then, and Charlie too. They're hopping around and Charlie works his way into us and piles on. See, I've sunk down onto Edward's lap and he's holding me there and I'm crying a little, but just a little.

"What if they say no?" I think to ask Emmett.

"Leave that to me," Emmett says. Then he offers to drive Charlie to school. He says Susie will come and see where Charlie goes to school. It throws Charlie a little but he agrees, so eager his hands shake as Emmett puts on his jacket and hands him his things.

I finally get him out the door and now Edward and me are running late, but as soon as we're alone I am in his arms. "We've got to seal the deal," he says, kissing my neck, making my hearing aid whistle.

We go upstairs and I take off my overalls and he gets his boots off and gets out of his coveralls.

He looks me up and down. I'm only half naked, the important half. I'm still wearing my socks.

"You want to take off your glasses?" he says.

"No," I answer not wanting to bother with it.

"This will be quick," he says.

Like that first time, I think, but it's not like that time, it's like this time, on the morning when he drops to his knees and asks me to marry him. It's me first because I'm ready, ready, ready. Then it's him filling me. Nothing is better than him pushing into me when I've just fallen apart and I'm aching for him deeper.

"I want you," he says as he pushes in five, six, seven, eight and he's off. I try to be there, to remember everything, the way he looks in this moment, eyes closed, lips red from my frantic kisses, face softened by love. "Bella," he gasps.

He kisses me as soon as he can, as soon as he's let go and he's breathing, he kisses me so many times and he's talking and his hands pull me so tight against him. "You'll be my wife, B. Did you see Charlie, that goof? Does he even know what it means?"

"He's the one that wanted to know if we were married. He knows it's…more."

"Whatever marriage is, it's already happened for me, B," he says.

I am looking at him, my glasses pushed up into my hair for a couple of minutes now. "That's the sweetest thing I ever heard," I whisper.

We need the legal side, we need to take the cold jump into the river, over the broom, over the moon. But whatever it is in its deepest self, this marriage thing, whatever it is, we are there.


	61. Chapter 61

My Ex-con 61

We meet with Bob Frieze and state our unapologetic intention to marry. Edward says, "Me and Bella are getting married." There's a tick in his jaw and he's locked eyes with Bob and his hand is almost squeezing mine into bloodlessness, but his grip doesn't waver.

He's starting to sound like a man who thinks he is free.

I almost want to add, "If you say it's okay, Bob," but I don't.

I look at Edward, this man…he became a man in a cell, a cage, away from me. And now he's sitting here sure and intense telling his PO we're getting married. He's saying it strong, he's saying it quiet, but if I were Bob, I'd believe him, I'd see-a man in love.

Bob shakes his head, looks away, smiles a little as he makes room on his desk, another case, another con, but here he is, flesh and blood and hopeful, and we're sitting in these two fake leather and chrome chairs in front of Bob's piled desk holding hands and asking for the state's green light.

Bob does another home check. He also looks at Carson's and speaks with Emmett.

Ann Compton visits two days later. She interviews me, Edward, and Charlie separately. I am able to show her what I've done as a self-appointed guardian. She looks through Charlie's room. I need to sign guardianship papers, and get power of attorney so I can make decisions for Charlie and oversee his SSI payments. I know Jasper won't fight me. He's counting on me to take care of Charlie. He gives me the uncashed checks he's received so far. It's always disorganization with him.

I feel like Ann is on Charlie's side, and that's good. It seems like a no-brainer that a social worker assigned to a kid would be the kid's advocate, but the way we grew up I've had some experience with the system and I know how it burns people up.

So I take people one at a time. It's all percentages. No one is one hundred percent, no one, but a seventy-five is good, maybe great, and that's me cause I'm dedicated, and that's Edward cause, it just is. But this one, Ann, for a social worker, she could be a sixty-five, you know? She still cares.

Ends up Frieze does not protest the marriage. Emmett brings that news as soon as he finds out, before Frieze even calls Edward.

Emmett recaps Bob's process some-Jasper is not Frieze's problem. Edward is. The fact that Edward is marrying me is allowable, but it's not Bob's problem where Jasper ends up.

But there is Charlie, and that's where Emmett makes his case. Once again, I come out strong. I'm a positive, stabilizing influence on Edward, and I'm taking in Charlie whose father is my brother. My brother has a verifiable psychological label. He struggles to parent, as in he doesn't even try, but Emmett makes the case that it is to Charlie's advantage that he knows his father, and rather than go off the rails on a crime spree with Edward, they already work together and the family is a positive for both of them.

Emmett doesn't know what a noose that is for me, but I bite the bit and control my tongue. Whatever it takes.

Frieze says he could just as well pull Edward out of it and his problem is solved.

But Edward is doing so well, and he's been good for Charlie and he's becoming a model citizen, except for being a felon. Emmett doesn't add that last part, but yeah, Bob does.

And there is no sustainable reason for Bob taking any kind of a risk on a felon. They lie, they all lie. That's the assumption and too often the experience. Why take a risk?

But he does. Thank-you, Emmett McCarty.

He's staying around. That's the deal. McCarty wants Frieze to take all the risk? Not happening. McCarty can just camp his ass in the middle of this mess and make it work for the next ten months until Edward can petition out.

So that Friday evening Emmett comes over and finds Edward and me at work in the carriage house. I'm waiting for the guys to straggle by for their checks. Artie is in town so he will be coming by as well.

I'm painting the part of the house that's nearly habitable—the bed/living room. Edward works on the other side of the big space in the living room/kitchen.

Charlie is across the street with Susie. Rosie says he can spend the night. He thinks he can do it. I've told him on the side if he has a problem missing home he can call and I'll come over.

"Edward already told me that," he says.

But now Emmett starts helping Edward nail trim. He's talking the whole time. Rosie doesn't want to give birth to this baby in the neighborhood. Would it be possible for them to become renters and extend their stay at Carson's?

I know a few things from spending some time with the McCartys. Since the shooting Emmett's is seeing the effects of too much trauma on his wife and he has another baby coming.

"She's first," he says. "If I put the work over her I'm just like every other dude out there who puts his work ahead of his family and says it's for them." His plan is to go back to work and come home to Carson's, if I'll allow it.

Of course I will. Even if I didn't want that, there's the ten-month-deal with Bob.

But Edward is looking at Emmett, and I'm struck at how hard he's listening. I know he likes Emmett over there on the Ponderosa filling the role of Hoss. I don't know all the ins and outs of why such a role terrorizes Edward, but it does. My best guess is the obvious one—it's too much for someone short on the outside.

I hear one of the guys pull up in the alley and I go out there and it's Artie. I have a lot to talk to him about with a new job starting the following week. So we yammer back and forth, all the details, and I take him in to meet Edward and they talk and he meets Emmett and they talk. So by the time I've walked him outside and he pulls off, it's quiet in the carriage house.

I near the still open door and I hear Emmett talking steadily. I stop to check the bottom of my shoe. Edward says something. "How do I know that? I read books inside, stories about regular life. I was trying to figure it out, like what you do to have a normal life. But B shows me how to live."

I don't mean to keep listening, I truly don't. I'm just struck by what he's said and then he talks some more and I'm really stuck.

"I want to tell her but she's going to dwell on it, maybe blame herself for it, knowing how she thinks," he says. Then there is some hammering. It's getting late and we've got neighbors, but I don't move. The hammering stops.

"What good would it do to tell her?" Emmett says. "You're right to talk about it, get it off your chest. It wells up again talk to me or someone you can trust. But you can't tell her just so you can feel better."

It's quiet, so quiet. I can't interrupt, but I can't risk moving and making noise.

"It don't bother me. Not anymore. The shit I seen. But she deserves…." Edward just lets it trail off. "I never doubt her. Even if she knew, she'd stick with me, but…yeah one night I took my shot. We waited for him coming out of the bar. He'd bragged, you know. Jasper heard about it. He bragged about things he did to her…before my time. She was a kid," he's angry. "I started in there was no stopping me. I didn't know he died until a few days later."

I know I'm hearing something I'm not supposed to hear but I can't move.

Jasper had said it—Edward killed someone. But Jasper says all kinds of things and to be honest, I don't listen anymore.

"He had it coming," he says.

But James didn't die. So it can't be James. This is someone else. Before he knew me. Someone who bragged. About what?

I was just a kid.

I need some time to think. There's more than one.

Maybe I already know. But I'm not ready to know.

I walk to the house and I look back.

He is standing in the doorway watching me walk away.

"She heard," he says to Emmett.

But he doesn't call me.

And I keep going until I'm in the house.

1111111111111111

I end up in the bathroom, sitting in this weird space between the end of the tub and the wall. I used to have a clothes hamper there, but now I just put them in a basket in the hall and take them down right away. I clean and clean and organize. I fight it that way—the past. The dirty feeling I have to keep giving to Jesus.

He comes in the house, I hear him, Bull following him. He comes right up, he's not fast or slow, he's just determined.

I can tell by his footsteps that he looks in the bedroom, then Bull leads him right to the door. "Bella?" he says.

I don't answer. His voice, I love everything about him. I don't know if it's normal to love this way. But when he makes me look at his dark side , that twenty-five percent of deep down blackness, I break some. I do. I knew his eyes then too, the dark thing. And in prison when they took him and I couldn't stop it, couldn't help him, I knew those eyes too. And the day he got out, all of it there, but so controlled, kept under, steady and waiting. I saw it then and I knew.

He opens the door slowly, and he's standing there.

"You wanted me to hear," I say.

He wanted me to hear him telling on himself. He wanted me to…what? Maybe he knows it was wrong.

But he's not sorry.

And I'm not asking him to be.

He's shaking his head, "You should know."

"Why did you tell him?"

"He's the first person I've trusted other than you.

I want to weed through this, I want to sift it and examine each piece. "Emmett said not to tell me."

"I wasn't asking."

I can't speak to him from this hidey hole. I wanted it at first but now I don't. So I get up and push past him. He doesn't try to stop me. He's giving me all the space I need to run around in. But he's not going away.

I sit on the bed, my arms folded. "You almost killed James," I say, pulling off my glasses and rubbing my eyes. But I know this isn't about James.

"I went to prison for the gun. His father pressed charges for that, the theft, not the beating. But I would have killed him. I meant to."

"I'm aware," I say sternly.

"You know we pulled a couple of jobs for James' old man, Jack. James couldn't even be a good thief. His old man put me in charge. Then Jasper was giving me trouble about you and James heard. He admits he put you in the hospital, makes up a bunch of shit and I go for him. You ever hear the one about us stealing Jack's gun…for Jack?"

I'm just staring.

"Yeah. We stole for him, from him. Frequently. Always before at job sites and he'd report to the insurance, we'd resell and he'd get the fat ass end of the cut and the insurance check. The gun was the first personal item. His son got mouthy and Jack didn't like my version of tough love."

I'm waiting.

"He put you in the hospital," Edward says, "and you protected him."

"Good people took care of me. Mr. Carson paid for my care. How could I let the truth come out? I didn't protect James. I protected Jasper," I say.

"It cost you your hearing. I did that time with a smile on my face. A fucking smile on my face."

"Edward," I say. I can barely breathe. We're still for a moment. "You said 'killed.'"

His face is hard. Oh God I see behind it all now.

"That was the first guy. The landlord. He bragged too. Jasper having a drink in that bar on Pestalozzi, the one with the shamrock out front. Turns out there was that guy, Creasy, used to collect the rent on that apartment around the corner where you and Jasper lived. He said some stuff and Jasper was out-numbered and he told me about it. So we waited next night in the alley out back where he parked."

I have my hands over my ears.

"I left that guy in a dark pool of blood. Thing is we came around a week later to get him again and they're holding the wake right there in the bar."

"Oh God," I say, my head in my hands. "You didn't even know me then." I look up at him. "Boil any bunnies lately? You were what…twenty?"

"Nineteen. I'm not going to live in fear that Jasper loses his mind and lets it out-again. I want it normal. I spent a long time paying for what I was. You know now."

My head drops back and I stare at the ceiling. "You're such a trip, Edward."

"Emmett told me the way it goes. You confess, then you change. You own it, you fix it. That's real."

I'm breathing. Big breaths.

He pulls me off the bed so I'm standing there, looking at him. "I'm sad for us. I keep trying to move on, but you turned my head and made me look back, and I'm so sad for us."

"I don't want to lose you B. I can't let him play with it."

"Who?"

"Your brother. You still want me?"

I hold his hand like he held mine in Frieze's office. I'm looking at his throat and the way he swallows, the beat of his heart there. "I always want you," I whisper. I look in his eyes then. This is how it is.

He's staring at my mouth.

"Go on and do it," I say.

First he holds me. We're standing there and he's holding me and I'm feeling it, letting myself be in it. I don't know why or how I meant so much to him, too much. Dangerous. So dangerous. And wrong, so wrong. No one to guide him, no one to save him. While he saved me.

I show him how to live.

He says that now. My broken soul, my ex-con. Edward.

"Edward," I say. Inside I'm crying again.

He squeezes me a little. "I figure if you can forgive me B, that's close enough…."

"There's nothing to forgive." I tell him that. "But I'm not God, Edward. Do you see how imperfect I am?"

Now the kiss. And the kissing, always so intense, like he gets lost in it and I fall right after.

But he kisses me this time with his eyes open.

"Why are you looking at me so close?" I say.

"I want to," he says backing me up to the bed.

I fall back and I'm looking up at him and he's undressing, something of his, then tugging on something of mine until we're naked enough. He opens my legs and gets in-between and more kissing then.

I feel the want in him. It's sexual, yes. But it's more. More, and sex, and my life, and my heart are all I can grab to stop the bleed.

I lift up then, I groan, and he kisses all down me, stops at the spot and I say his name over and over. Then he's back up and breath like pussy, and he is kissing me over still and I laugh and he wipes his face on the sheet, he's laughing too, then he's kissing me again and no one laughs, but we soar, him and me, we soar…soar.

We have survived ourselves.


	62. Chapter 62

My Ex-con 62

Rosie is an old-hand at weddings. Over the years New Hope has had a few. Granted they are usually a little less conventional than at other churches. Howbeit the brides and grooms are just as eager, she says.

She is making us a wedding supper to celebrate. Emmett is marrying us on the patio. There are flowers. Rosie is standing for me, Jasper for Edward. Susie and Charlie complete our guest list.

This makes me think of things, like parents. Forget fathers, but where are the mothers? I'm not pining, believe me, but I mention this to Edward as I stand before our bedroom mirror waiting for him to clasp the necklace he bought me along with my engagement ring. "Ever think about our mothers?"

"What mothers?" he says.

"Yours and mine, what do you think?"

"I don't," he says. "Not about them."

He kisses my bare back that shows in the v of my open zipper. He says mm-hmm or some noise before closing my dress. Then he turns me and looks down my front. "This dress," he says.

My fingers pull at the slender silver chain as I observe Edward's crisp white shirt and black pants. I mean there is no man with anything on my almost husband.

So I'm looking at him, eyebrow raised. "Not so bad yourself."

"Yeah," he says taking a step back and smoothing over his black tie. He's kind of proud. And eager. And handsome and cute. He's happy. Ten years have fallen away. His eyes break my heart with love, not fear, not pain, just this…joy.

Downstairs, before we leave the house we kiss at the door. "We'll look back on this," I say. "There will be a lot of days, we won't have a way to remember them, but today, we'll always remember this one."

"Yeah," he says. "We've got a few others we won't ever forget. That night Bull burst into the bathroom and I saw your birthday suit."

I laugh. "You did not."

"Did too." He kisses me. "Tsunami. When I patched your foot and could see up the leg of your shorts-earthquake."

"Liar," I say hitting him.

He's laughing. "Eating that greasy pizza that first day when I really wanted to eat…."

"I'm yanking these hearing aids out," I threaten.

There goes my lipstick.

"We're not having the honeymoon before the wedding," I say when he lets me breathe.

"It's been one long honeymoon," he says, kissing me some more and his tongue and his taste and it's what I want, always want. If there are any nerves hanging around, we're encouraged.

"I had to hit the streets to find that crazy brother of yours, what a long and fucked up road. But here we are B. Heaven, yeah?" he says, then he takes in a breath and kisses me again.

"We know something right now, Edward," I say. "We know how to love each other. I don't ever want to forget."

He holds my hands, brings them to his lips, kisses one then the other. "We won't ever forget. I'm listening, B. Hear me?"

"Yeah."

"I'm listening."

I nod.

"I learned to do that, B."

He kisses my hands again.

"What do you need from me?" I say.

"You do fine."

"I mean…be specific."

"Sex." He laughs and crushes me against him.

My arms are around him. I love him so much, I squeeze and I hold on. I want to pause life here, but as sure as I'm happy, somebody, somewhere is crying, hurting, saying good-bye, letting go of a dream, letting go of a life. Somebody, somewhere…who's not me…not us. So I can't pause time, I can only feel and be, and smile…for us.

When we finally cross the street he takes my hand.

"It's just Carson's," I say as we get near the house, then the door opens and Charlie runs down the porch stairs. He's dressed like Edward. Jasper's best man and Charlie is bestest man.

"They're here," he calls out, like we haven't seen him less than an hour ago.

He runs to us and gets in the middle, holds each of our hands and we finish the walk that way.


	63. Chapter 63

My Ex-con 63

I am lying on a lounge chair near the cinder block barbeque pit built on this camp site. I wear my swimming suit. It's hot, but not bad here in the shade and my hair is still wet from the lazy swim we had in the river, well it's not much of a river, more like a nice old creek in some places, but we took a float trip this morning and it went on forever and I'm tired.

Right now Edward is cleaning fish cause he and Jasper fished the whole way as Charlie and me floated, or walked. And Charlie is with him, watching him and carrying on. Jasper is working on the fire cause he's determined to cook this skillet of potatoes first. So I'm just watching.

"Look at this," Charlie appears with some gross fish guts in his hand too close to my face. He turns from me to show Jasper. Jasper laughs and says he'll sauté them right up for Charlie's lunch.

I am looking at my brother, still skinny from losing Alice and maybe the new meds. He made a joke though, he joked with Charlie.

Charlie laughs and throws the pink stuff at Jasper and it lands on his leg and he gets up and chases Charlie toward the river where Edward is, but that kid can run.

Edward calls himself and Jasper 'sister wives.' That makes me the husband and Charlie the shared kid.

It makes me smile as I close my eyes and feel so lazy it's ridiculous. Then the cold drops of water make me open my eyes and soon as I do, there's Edward shaking his wet hair over me and grinning.

He looks along me, to my feet and back up. He's been doing this all day, all along the river giving me the eye, a whistle. "Wow," he says.

I love to wow him. I think he's blind or something, but I love the way he makes me feel beautiful. I'm in my old one piece. It's a faded blue and it's modest, but he makes me feel like I'm wearing something more revealing. Well he knows what's underneath. I'm surprised we haven't brought our tent down yet. Night before we got up at two in the morning and went to the river and made love on a blanket crunching rocks under the thick quilt, under my ass, Edward mooning the moon as we did the deed. He puts me on total emotional overload.

So I check no one is around and run my hands down myself, end up between my thighs. It's quick but effective.

"Shit," he says softly, this little helpless smile. He leans closer, "You're gonna pay for that," he whispers.

I flop onto my stomach and Edward slaps me on my backside and walks off whistling. He goes to dig around in our screened in tent and grabs a pan and Charlie appears and asks if he can have a Mountain Dew. I say no as Edward says yes.

Charlie gets one and goes back to the river on Edward's heels to finish working on the catch.

Jasper is back and he's wet from a swim. He fixes his potatoes and some onion in the skillet and I am watching him put that pan on the grill over his fire.

While he starts cooking he reminds me of some dumb stuff we did when we were kids, meals we scrounged, times we tried to cook. We got so damn hungry sometimes. Cold pork and beans right out of the can and God bless fruit cocktail, peanut butter on our fingers, Ramen noodles. Lipton chicken soup. Dry, dehydrated everything cause we could always add water.

He's carefully stirring the potatoes and Charlie comes to watch, taking noisy sips of that soda and belching and laughing, dragging his bare toes through the dust there from other meals, other campers too. He is beside Jasper, my God, big and little, a father's image stamped there on a boy like God must have done with us, this something we've got that makes God claim us even when we think he might not exist the way Jasper is with Charlie most of the time, but it doesn't change the facts. That kid is his.

And tears sting my eyes when Jasper looks up at Charlie cause he's sitting on a stool near the pit and he really sees that boy, it's like he's considering him even, the grand gesture of putting those fish guts on him, but standing nearby his naked belly fat with care and brown like a hickory nut. Little Charlie smiles back at this man, and it's the same smile.

"River makes me hungry," Jasper says.

Charlie says, "Me too."

And I think of all they could say about the short life, and the longer life, all they could say, and all they are never going to say.

And Jasper forks out a piece of potato and blows on it and Charlie looks at me for permission to eat it like I'm the queen or something. Charlie opens his mouth and Jasper puts in the bit of food.

Charlie chews and says it's good. Then he runs off to visit Edward.

"He liked that," I say to Jasper. How many times I've nudged him like this. He's far from stupid. He knows what I mean. We haven't just met. There were those years when we were the only one that mattered to the other. Years and blood and a womb I can't remember. Tell me he don't know what I'd say no matter what happens, tell me he don't know what I'd say.

My brother looks at me. He doesn't so often…look at me. "You're doing a good job with him B."

I sit up slowly cause he heard me through the silence. "Thanks."

"Did the same with me. I wouldn't be alive without you."

Jeez, that's two. "You're my brother."

"But who took care of you?" Every now and then he likes to feel sorry for me. I don't know why.

"You tried Jasper. What did we know, right?"

"You do the right thing, B. You always have. You do it even when no one is looking."

I laugh a little. "Not very creative. I mean me." I laugh. "I've been proud of the way you've gotten on your feet. You know?"

He shrugs as he stirs. He doesn't let me be too proud. Too many strings. You do the right thing and it's no picnic. You're a cliché that way. No matter which way you go, you're loser, you're winner. But if you're strong, hard on yourself, doing what you have to and saving the world, you're set up to be the one who gets bucked and labeled the judge, the self-righteous prig.

I know he gets mad, thinks I live to sift through his life just looking for where he fucks up. But it's not like that and I'm not like that, but I quit defending myself a long time ago.

"You still miss her." I shouldn't bring it up but I know he longs for her.

He looks at me. "Four months, sixteen and one half days," he says.

See, it's all there. We don't need words. "Obsession is about you, Jasper. Your sickness."

"I know the difference. I want to go to her B."

"I'm not trying to hurt you, but she went far away. Michigan."

"She's waiting B. She wants me to get a job there, a fresh start. She says I'll never grow up as long as I've got you to fall back on."

"He's your child, Jasper. She's mad cause I kept him. She doesn't get to make that call for me." Meaning I'm not him. Oh shit. I don't want to fight. There's no fight.

"We come from fuck-ups. Whatever they had, I got it. But not you, B. You always been from someplace better," he says, and he isn't angry.

My brother. He's twenty-eight and he looks thirty-eight but he sounds about eighteen.

"You're doing better with him Jasper. You made a joke."

He's shaking his head. "Edward will be there, man. He wants it. He's like that. Charlie knows. He calls him Dad."

"Because he…." I don't have to say it. He calls Edward, 'Dad,' because that's what Edward…is. "You go up there and get arrested and they'll be happy to throw your ass inside."

Jasper takes his skillet of potatoes to the table and sets the hot pan on a towel folded there. I'm looking at him waiting for him to retract any idea of going to Alice.

Edward and Charlie come from the river then. Edward has a pan of fish. He's filleted them and rolled them in a meal he bought on the way up here.

Charlie is going on about the fish. He wants to help cook them. Edward looks from me to Jasper. He's always attuned to how it is with me and my brother. He knows all the tells. I'm pissed and Jasper is determined.

He gets Jasper to put his potatoes on foil and he brings the skillet back to the fire. Him and Charlie set about frying the fish then. We pretty much end up around the pit, the four of us. I think my appetite is gone, but all day on the river, it's there all right and I know it as soon as Edward brings me a piece of fish and blows on it and feeds me that first delicious bite like Jasper did with Charlie.

Is my brother saying I held him back? From nothing, that's what. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Alice thinks she can do better than I have…. Let's see her get him a job he can keep.

Maybe if he stays on his meds. Maybe that's okay. But why should he have to go away from us? We had a way, the three of us, and it worked.

It worked, didn't it? I want to ask that. I want to ask Edward.

"What is it?" he says giving me a big spoon of Jasper's potatoes.

"Nothing." How the hell do I know. "Jasper says he's going to Michigan," I say. I roll my eyes.

Edward is sucking the fish and maybe a little bit of me off his fingers. "So?" Then to Jasper he says, "You hell-bent on going to Michigan? You never give it up, do you."

"I'm better," Jasper says. "What would keep you away from B?" Jasper says. "I couldn't."

No, Jasper couldn't keep us apart. He told me a few times he trusted me to keep Edward at arm's length. But he's the one who always knew how deep it ran. I swear I did not. Jasper was the one who witnessed it all.

Later, after we eat, we're at the river and Charlie fills a can with pretty rocks then dumps them out and takes off after tadpoles and Edward is in the water with him and they talk about going off a rope tied in a tree the next day and Charlie says he's scared. Edward is trying to show him how to swim but he's not interested.

Jasper sits on a blanket with me.

"When you going?" I say. It just comes out of me, the question. This isn't the brother of just a couple of months ago. He may go and come right back if he doesn't get arrested. Or he may stay.

What if he stays? What if it works?

"Soon as we get back," he says.

I look at him.

"She know?" I say.

"She's waiting. How long could you stay away from him?" he asks, motioning toward Edward.

I look out there, Edward walks along the shallows with Charlie and his can. He's beautiful, cut off pants, his back an easy brown from working outside at our place this first half of summer. His hair is long and scraggly on the back of his neck. His laugh hits me like music, and beyond him and Charlie the sun setting and lighting the trees and the water with that last gold burst.

How long could I stay away from him? My heart longs for him right this minute. And we are not apart. How long? Never again.

"Go then," I say softly.

"How you mean it? You mean…?"

"I mean go," I say, my hand reaching for my brother's arm. "I mean…you have to try."

He leans toward me and his arms come around me and mine around him, and for the first time in a long, long time, I hold my brother.


	64. Chapter 64

My Ex-con 64

The thing about deciding not to have children, childless people only have perspective from one side of the fence.

I'd raised Jasper. I thought I didn't want that again. And I was right. I was a kid raising a kid. So I didn't want anything to do with that much responsibility for another human being.

Until Charlie.

He blew my world apart, let's face it he did.

I'm older now, I'm not alone, and I'm in love.

I know he's not perfect—my lover. He has a few black holes in his sunshine. His reluctance about ever living at Carson's—he's doing a Paul McCartney on me. He doesn't want us rattling around in such a big place, all of us spread out, too far away from one another.

He likes us close in. Charlie across the hall from us is fine with him. Well, my other did live in a cell for eight years. That makes our house palatial enough.

But even back in the day he used to end up in my bed. He just likes to keep it close.

We've got weirdness on a few points, our little family. It's not like we need to fix all of it. It's not like we need to worry about it even. I choose the path that says what I do here is important. I care to think past myself. And weird personality may make you a character, but you can still have some character, too, and I think we do.

Edward has finished the carriage house remodel and the backporch. The neighbors come over, like what he's doing, can they hire him? He laughs, but I know carpentry pulls at him. So far my house has had enough to keep him satisfied. Our house. I'm still remembering to make my pronouns plural. Now he's working on the upstairs windows, replacing them.

"Yeah," I'm saying to him through the glass of the window in our bedroom. He's outside on a scaffolding making a final check.

It looks fantastic. Well he does. It's the bottom third of summer and he's wearing an undershirt, the kind with no sleeves and he's dark-skinned, him and Charlie turning to honey and chocolate before my eyes. I move up to the glass. He smiles and gets closer, motions with his thumb I should raise my shirt. I want to laugh but I don't, I always go along.

I pull the two layers of fabric up, bow my back and feel the glass against my chest. He grins, looking there like he's never seen them before. He's always like that, like every time is the first time. So he's looking there ignoring the fact that I also have my nose smashed on the glass. He's got one hand on the side of the window and the other motions I should pull down the top of the window and I step back and do that, rubbing my nose and pulling my shirts down too.

"Don't pull that down," he says, reaching in to touch me where I'm still cool from the glass. "Give me a kiss," he says low, and I do and he's laughing a little and he's got an arm over the sash and it makes me laugh that he can French me so well like this and cop a feel while he's at it while still standing outside. He always goes for it, always starts in the middle….

"Aunt B?" Charlie says at my door. He's been moping around since Emmett and Rosie and Susie left this morning to attend a rally somewhere in Michigan to fund raise. The McCarty's plan to see my brother while there. Jasper is working for a painting company similar to mine. I gave him a good reference. He texts me a couple of times a week. He never asks about Charlie, but I tell him anyway. In his scant time at McCarty's he got to know Charlie some, and then the camping trip. Never mind he disappeared during the night to go home, get his stuff, then take off for Michigan. Even on his meds he's unpredictable. Charlie saw it firsthand. We reassured him that was just Jasper. It didn't have a thing to do with us. We weren't going anywhere.

Charlie does still worry about Edward on parole. He knows something about the system. Maria must have had a boyfriend on parole that went back inside. I asked Charlie but he doesn't remember the particulars. I take it there were several men. And maybe it's that revolving door that makes him suspicious that a man will stay. Edward gets it and he reassures Charlie all the time.

But Charlie is close to me. It's mother-first, Rosie said. She told me-love that baby up. Teach him, love him, get ahold of his tender heart and pour in the Mama, and pour in the Jesus, until he can't tell the difference. Do it now, she said, do the groundwork. It's all love.

Then, around eleven, she said it's Dad front and center. She said that will be time for Edward to take Charlie way under his hairy wing-show him how to be a man. I have to be willing to let go a little and a little and a little more.

We've talked it all over, Rosie and me. She says if a boy doesn't get what he needs from his dad he'll look to his friends. And I know that's what Edward and Jasper must have done—rubber-stamped one another—'You're cool!" (from Jasper), "No, you're cool!" (back from Edward, then…) "Let's go rob a house!"

Jasper had James first, then Edward. Male validation from effed-up peers.

I love that Edward has Emmett. It's not that I don't trust my love to know all this, I've shared it and he's interested. I ask him, "Will you know how? You do so well now, but God knows we didn't have anyone to show us."

"We'll do all right, B."

His confidence melts my heart. There is nothing he could do or say better than this.

"I love you," I tell him. It's a short, powerful sentence and I couldn't mean it more.

"If a girl comes along…," he lets that hang. He looks at my stomach and does these up and down eyebrows, "maybe I'll need help."

My hand goes to my middle. "What?" I check to make sure it's flat. I've just gotten over my first period. I never had them when I was on the shot, but he doesn't know what's in the shot and he says I shouldn't take shit that could give me cancer or something, and anyway, what the heck. I'm a woman, I shouldn't be afraid of it.

I tell him I didn't know he had a medical degree—psychiatry-gynecology.

He doesn't trust that shit, he says. He doesn't like what it meant to me—shooting up, he says.

That's not why I got off of it. I'm pulling back. I got a diaphragm. I know it's old school, but I'm ready for a change. I'm not craving a baby. The shots were me being…closed. I'm different now. And it sounds strange maybe, but I want the blood, the old blood to go. I want the river to flow while I coast along and figure it out. I'm not stopping…anything real. Maybe it's symbolism…like communion…like wedding cake…like turning the tassel to the other side of the graduation cap.

I've come a-ways. I'm taking chances now. I don't have a map, but I'm not alone if I get lost.

Edward has a different idea of what a problem really is. He has gratitude for things most people don't think much about. He loves soft towels, ice cubes in his sugary iced tea, and my six-hundred count sheets, and soaking in the bath. He loves a roaring fan at night when he sleeps—that white noise so unlike a prison barnyard, he says. He loves sleeping with the window open. Air. Fresh air. And sleeping naked. He loves listening to crickets from the backporch. He says he loves my cooking, loves to kiss my neck, feel my hair on his stomach and thighs, loves to hold me…all night. Loves to watch me, sings, "something in the way she moves," to me, just that part.

He loves Charlie's laugh and his picket fence teeth and just about everything that kid says.

He loves to grow things. He didn't know that until this year. He has tomato plants along the fence.

He likes to paint but he loves to work with wood, smell wood, look at wood, talk about wood.

Yeah I love his wood. I say that.

So Charlie runs up to the window and Edward is half in, and he pulls out and I open the bottom half this time and before Edward can climb in Charlie begs to climb out. So Edward says, "Come on," and he lets Charlie scramble out there and I'm about ready to have a heart attack.

I catch myself on the third or so warning. "Don't let him fall," is what I nearly say again.

Edward stands near but he doesn't grab the back of Charlie's shirt like I would. I didn't used to like heights and I still don't, but I've had to overcome them due to working on ladders or scaffoldings so much. But I hate heights for Charlie's sake. I do.

Charlie says, "It's tall!" and he doesn't seem to have the fear I'd like to see, not fear but caution.

It's like he wants to fly—that Charlie, and I want him to fly—someday.

"Forget it Dude," Edward says and they climb in. Then a big hug for me, first Charlie, then Edward.

I tell them it's time to clean up. I'm going to pack the cooler then we're driving to the bridge over the river where we're going to park and watch the fireworks explode from sea to shining sea. They held off until August cause the riverfront wasn't ready in July, so we're having a delayed Fourth.

I go downstairs while Edward stays up to use the new shower he installed in our bathroom.

It's a few minutes later, after he shuts off the water and I'm putting the sandwiches in a bag. "Bella," Edward calls and I know by his tone it means trouble.

Charlie is crying, a whining sound. I run upstairs and Edward is holding Charlie in his arms. Charlie had snuck out on the scaffolding and he was hurrying back in the window when Edward got out of the shower. He fell on the sill and hurt his arm.

Edward looks at me. Yeah that arm might be broken.

I take Charlie from him so he can get out of his towel and into his jeans.

This boy is heavy, but I could carry him all the way to the hospital.

And I do, on my lap in the back seat. Edward drives quietly. "It's all right," he tells both of us.

"Shouldn't have gone out there," I say, but Charlie knows that now.

And it's not broken, it's dislocated, and we mean to go home but Charlie begs to see the fireworks once we're out of the emergency room, his arm bound close in a lime-colored sling.

So they've already started the show when Edward pulls onto the bridge, and we climb out and sit on the hood of the car and Edward holds Charlie now, on his lap, his arm around that one leaning back against him. Charlie's legs are stretched out, and his feet are in my lap.

I don't watch the display, I watch them as we sit up high, I watch them and my heart swells and rips and swells again, right there in the chest I'd smashed on the glass so Edward could perv. I'll always remember this Fourth of July that came in August, came late…like my life.

I'll remember the sounds of the fireworks exploding, the roar of the crowd on the far riverbank a sea of noise and color and movement. I'll remember the ride home and how Edward looked at me in the mirror as I sat in back with Charlie asleep on my shoulder. I'll remember stopping at Steak and Shake and Edward ordering in the drive-through and me barely able to tell him what I wanted to drink I felt so full, so blessed.

And I'll remember pulling up to the house, in the driveway and Edward taking Charlie from me and carrying him into the house. I'll remember how I put the food away we never ate while he put Charlie to bed and how we went into our room and undressed and kissed without the glass between us, without anything between us but a love so much bigger and brighter, Fourth of July.

And I'll remember after Edward was asleep and I went to the window to look at the scaffolding and face how bad it could have been, seeing the lights back there in the carriage house, and seeing the outline of his truck pulled close to the back and knowing, knowing it hadn't worked out for him in Michigan, and it never could have, and it never would.

And looking over my shoulder at Edward asleep, and going to him, lying behind, throwing my arm over him, nuzzling my face against his back and knowing he'll be with me in the morning.


End file.
